tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83878022011-10-03T01:44:52.237-07:00Issues addressed are apt to include Civil War history, German heritage, web-based genealogy, my family history website and some other stuff, too.Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.comBlogger891100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-29023320010817009402009-05-17T06:26:00.000-07:002009-05-18T07:39:45.975-07:00

Several weeks ago I posted the company flag for Grinnell & Minturn's Red Swallowtail shipping line, the company that operated the packet ship, London, on which my great great great grandparents sailed the London to New York leg of their 1855 emigration from East Brandenburg in Prussia to Wisconsin.A recent visitor to my blog found my post through a Google search for the terms "Grinnell & Minturn

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-56881598341443255662009-05-03T20:41:00.000-07:002009-05-07T04:15:01.527-07:00

A year and a half ago I found the passenger manifests for the ships on which my German ancestors arrived in New York at Castle Garden in 1855 and 1856. I posted about that find on this blog and shortly after wrote another post about the New York Marine Register and the online information I had gleaned at Mystic Seaport about the ships on which my ancestors traveled.I mentioned then that my

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-16635595426741257682009-02-22T02:01:00.000-08:002009-02-23T10:04:24.978-08:00

I'm always finding new things online. It's not that the book itself is new. In fact, it's been around for exactly one hundred years. What's new is that significant portions of it are now available online in English translation.'The Book of the Germans in America' was published in 1909. It contains more than nine hundred pages and, starting around page 368 or so, the latter portion of the book is

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-22327027472702178782009-02-08T09:11:00.000-08:002009-02-08T03:56:13.379-08:00

The pictures above were taken in Jefferson City in Wisconsin in 1930. They were sent to me by my Aunt Vera at my request shortly before she died a year or so ago at the age of 90. Vera is the girl at the left in the upper right picture. The girl to her left is her sister, Eileen, and the three year old driving the toy car is my father. I would guess their mother, Elda, was the photographer, but

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-63362218773215554222008-11-09T22:22:00.000-08:002009-02-24T17:09:17.575-08:00

Dear Ms. Keller,Thanks so much for your reply to my inquiry. The Personnenregister database indicates there were several doctors of theology named Olearius associated with the formation of the Franckesche Stiftungen. Johann Georg Lubach lived to be eighty years old and could have known all of them. I am curious to know which one of them he might have eulogized.There are several people named

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-85004114403233193082008-11-02T18:33:00.000-08:002008-11-06T21:15:21.310-08:00

It came to my attention a month or so ago that my webpage has been cited as a reference in a recent online revision of an older scholarly article in print called The Story of Union Forces In South Texas During the Civil War. The article was revised by Norman Rozeff of the Cameron County Historical Commission in Texas for their website. My URL for my webpage is listed in the references at the end

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-28979067508655994212008-10-05T01:39:00.000-07:002008-11-06T20:43:42.507-08:00

I received the following e-mail message about two weeks ago:Sep 22 Thank you for all the info you have given me on my family. I have been searching for any clues to my family ties for years without finding anything. I just knew that my grandfather had a half brother Henry...period....no other names. I now know that Ludwig Backhaus was his father. I have gone to New Fane and found the grave. My

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-19266831731442984862008-09-07T02:52:00.000-07:002008-09-08T04:03:43.668-07:00

Merriman SistersIf you click on the link my cousins, the Merriman sisters, should take you up where bluebirds fly in five part harmony. The last time I saw them in person was more than forty years ago and they were shorter then, but I'm pretty sure they're singing the same arrangement they learned from their father, Jack, a high school music teacher, who died of a heart attack before he was forty

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-76086009109787012962008-07-20T06:03:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:21:15.416-08:00

I joined a newsserver called the Germany Passengers List about a year ago. The members of the list often go to great lengths to assist people looking for information about ancestors or relatives who emigrated by ship from what is now called Germany to other parts of the world. A month or so ago the list ran a message from someone with a relative who made the crossing from Hamburg to New York on

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-17822063666924065812008-05-18T01:38:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:21:16.271-08:00

I don't know how many state parks come furnished with a house of worship that's an authentic national landmark, but I do know that the Northern Unit of the Kettle Moraine State Forest in Wisconsin has one for which I feel a certain affinity. Ordinarily my tendency is to worship nature out of doors and some of the best places for doing so can be found in state or national parks. The church in the

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-58567325098474738382008-01-20T02:32:00.000-08:002008-12-09T02:21:16.443-08:00

My third cousin, Kim in California, who I've only met online through my blog, has sent me more photos of our Price relatives from South Bend, Indiana. If you click on the photo you can see them in much greater detail. Kim said she thinks these four pictures were taken in 1927, roughly twenty-five years after the 1902 Price Family Reunion photo that appeared last year in a previous post.The

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-20155181545367867832007-10-21T10:36:00.000-07:002007-11-13T00:32:17.294-08:00

I've been fortunate to find a little more information concerning the ships on which my father's family arrived in the United States in the decade preceding the American Civil War. Mystic Seaport is a town in Connecticut with a maritime museum that has a great website. If you know the name of the ship and a good approximation of the year it arrived, go to Mystic Seaport. The site has online

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-39575502643552809112007-10-07T02:27:00.000-07:002008-05-20T07:43:03.936-07:00

I've located the ship manifests, posted online by Ancestry.com, for the ships on which my German ancestors arrived in America. My father's great grandparents, Wilhelm and Maria Lubach, arrived in New York at Castle Garden on July 12, 1856, on a ship called the 'Ann Washburn' which departed from Hamburg with more than 300 passengers on board, nearly all of them German, including my father's

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-12744378794934390782007-09-16T21:30:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:21:16.876-08:00

I've recently located an online transcription for a church cemetery in the southeasternmost corner of Fond du Lac County in Wisconsin. I believe that my great great grandmother and my great great great grandfather are buried in the St. John's New Fane cemetery in Auburn Township. I had not located their graves previously because census records indicate that they lived in Scott Township in

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-34326641629004234002007-08-19T03:33:00.000-07:002007-10-20T11:11:21.319-07:00

I mentioned in a post several months ago that I visited Atlanta in 2001. I spent most of my time there at a highrise hotel in North Atlanta that was hosting a meeting my wife was attending, but I did find time for a round of golf, for an afternoon at the Stone Mountain Monument and also for a visit to one of my wife's colleagues who works at Emory University and lives in East Atlanta. The visit

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-26668717093780945102007-07-08T03:48:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:21:17.088-08:00

Descendants of any of the people pictured in the photo above are cordially invited to attend a family reunion hosted by my third cousin, Kim, in California. Actually she wants to have the reunion in North Liberty Township in South Bend, Indiana, where the picture was taken more than a hundred years ago. My mother was born and raised in South Bend. She bore a striking resemblance to her

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-8078967549885587322007-06-17T03:26:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:21:17.229-08:00

As far as I know, Konrad Krez only published three poems about his experiences commanding a Union regiment in the Civil War. None of those poems, to my knowledge, have been translated into English except on this blog. Unlike 'New Orleans, February 1865' and 'Heimchen Brazos Santiago', written about locales where his unit was stationed for only a week or two, 'Little Rock' is about the place

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-47350442299134765972007-06-10T02:34:00.000-07:002007-06-13T21:18:24.557-07:00

I finished high school, quite a few years ago, in Galveston, Texas, and started college in Houston. One of my first college reading assignments was a book called 'Invisible Man'. It was for a course called Existential Literature or something along that line. We read Malraux, Sartre, Camus, Beckett and a few others as well. I have fairly distinct recollections of most of those writers, but I

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-75089986671329024492007-05-20T05:03:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:21:17.784-08:00

I had a chance to visit a county park near Milwaukee last month. It had actually been a state park in Wisconsin for a number of years until just a few years ago. The temperature was below freezing, but it was still a real nice day for a walk in the woods.My wife and I were visiting my mother-in-law who lives in Milwaukee. She's 86 years old, also of German stock, and quite accustomed to cold

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-72485934468404773252007-04-01T05:25:00.002-07:002008-12-09T02:21:17.882-08:00

I translated this poem more than a year ago. I wanted to be certain that my great great grandfather was actually with his unit in Texas before I put it online. It was my first attempt to translate a Krez poem from German into English. Click on the image to enlarge the German text.Copied courtesy of Wolfgang Diehl,Konrad Krez: Freiheitskampfer und Dichterin Deutschland und AmerikaPfalzische

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-50051022009748034192007-03-18T22:32:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:21:18.067-08:00

I exchanged e-mails a month ago with a direct descendant of the German-American poet-general, Konrad Krez, who organized and led the regiment in which my Civil War ancestor served. The first message arrived within a day or two of the records I requested from the National Archive. He had taken a look at my online translations of two Krez poems and the foreword by Ludwig Finckh that accompanied the

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-11746541259204968252007-03-04T04:30:00.000-08:002008-12-09T02:21:18.303-08:00

I heard from a third cousin, Kim in California, in response to a post I wrote in November headed Earl of Great Grandpa Price. I mentioned in that post that my mother had shown me a picture of my great grandmother, Laura Steele, and one of her sisters, Emma, and that in the picture it looked to her as though they might have been part Native American.My cousin sent me these pictures of a Price

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-49286704324492055262007-02-25T19:21:00.000-08:002008-12-09T02:21:18.372-08:00

Back in December I filled out some forms and mailed off a record request to the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington D.C., better known as NARA. I requested military service and pension application records for three soldiers from Wisconsin, my great great grandfather, William Lubach, his wife's brother, William Ebert, and the husband of his wife's sister, August Heise.The

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-10442823625416575972007-01-28T01:47:00.000-08:002007-02-05T02:59:49.344-08:00

I've discovered that my great great grandfather's unit in the War of the Rebellion now has a more or less official history. The book is called A History of the 27th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the War of the Rebellion, 1862-1865. It was written in 2001 by Mark H. Knipping, a descendant of a soldier from that regiment. The manuscript is still technically unpublished, although

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1166628919600302482006-12-17T05:30:00.000-08:002006-12-20T07:36:15.856-08:00

I've been reading up on the doings of my grandfather's cousin, Walter, who was born in Lima, Ohio in 1894. It's not that hard to do. His name appears in some ninety different editions of the Lima News between 1915 and 1972. And all of those papers are archived online. You click on the entry and the whole page appears. The hardest part is trying to decide which news item on the page is most

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1164908134928943772006-11-26T07:52:00.000-08:002006-11-30T10:48:45.180-08:00

My mother's father, Cleon Virgil Steele, first appeared in the U.S. Federal Census in 1900 when he was ten months old. He lived in Liberty Township in South Bend, Indiana with his parents, Ira and Laura Steele, his grandparents, Alexander and Lydia Anne Price, and his cousin, Earl Price, Alexander's eight year old grandson.Laura Steele was the youngest daughter of Alexander and Lydia Anne Price.

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1162461389057485552006-10-29T01:12:00.000-08:002006-11-02T02:01:56.603-08:00

Great news! I've been blogrolled again! So I've taken the liberty of adding a reciprocal link to Andy's Civil War Blog aka Strike The Tent ..... Andy's blog is dedicated to his great great grandfather, who fought with the 5th New York Cavalry and died at Andersonville Prison during the Civil War. The blog is regularly updated with news about Civil War history, battlefields, monuments, museums

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1157448456641746902006-09-03T00:56:00.000-07:002006-09-19T23:12:47.243-07:00

The only grandparents I ever knew were my mother's parents, Bud and Carlie Steele. I remember my grandfather as someone who was almost always physically attached to a camera of one sort or another, more often than not a movie camera. He had seventeen grandchildren and I'm sure that quite a bit of what little time I spent with him is now part of some massive home movie archive in the hands of my

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1155545490920367922006-08-13T01:01:00.000-07:002006-08-14T05:23:35.566-07:00

My mother's great grandfather, Michael Steele, married a woman named Charlotte Stradley, the daughter of a man who described himself as a "physician" in the 1850 census for Wabash, Indiana. That would be my great great great grandfather, Dr. Daniel W. Stradley. His grandfather came to America from England around the time of the Revolution and settled in Baltimore. Charlotte Stradley is the

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1154835005752084612006-08-06T19:55:00.000-07:002007-09-15T23:38:57.563-07:00

My mother's great grandfather had a brother who died at Andersonville Prison during the Civil War. I know because my grandmother told me so nearly forty years ago, around the time that my grandfather died. I didn't know any of the details so it really didn't mean much to me at the time. Today on the internet so much more information is readily accessible than at any time in the past and what I've

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1152443081595882682006-07-09T04:02:00.000-07:002006-07-14T04:38:25.303-07:00

I've translated another poem by Konrad Krez. This one was written during the two or three weeks when the poet-general and my great great grandfather's unit, the 27th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, were stationed in Algiers, directly across the Mississippi River from the French Quarter of New Orleans, a staging area where thousands of Union troops were massed, awaiting transport to the battles

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1150372082127599342006-06-11T04:43:00.000-07:002006-06-15T06:58:11.430-07:00

One hundred and fifty years ago my great great grandfather left his home in East Brandenburg and brought his wife and two small sons on a ship to a new life in the new world in a farming community near Sheboygan in the state of Wisconsin. Less than ten years later he was buried at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. He was thirty-eight years old when he fought and died in the American Civil War.A

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1149053212785750372006-05-28T19:40:00.000-07:002007-02-05T04:24:58.438-08:00

I finally finished reading 'The March', E.L. Doctorow's PEN/Faulkner Award winning novel about Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's infamous swath of destruction from Georgia, through South Carolina and into North Carolina during the last six months of America's Civil War.My wife read most of it in one sitting on an eight hour plane flight from Hong Kong to Sydney. She said it was good, but

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1146741378681308042006-04-30T03:14:00.000-07:002006-05-04T21:23:16.560-07:00

Six or eight months ago I threatened in one of my posts to translate parts of several books I had then recently acquired from an antiquarian bookseller in Germany. The books concern the life and poetic works of Colonel Konrad Krez, the man who commanded the regiment in which my German immigrant great great grandfather fought and died during the American Civil War. I am pleased to report that I

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1143121932421760062006-03-19T05:44:00.000-08:002006-03-23T06:55:47.183-08:00

I visited Germany several years ago and spent the better part of a day in Potsdam after a short train ride from Berlin and a much longer walk than I had anticipated. I got off the train one stop too early and walked for about an hour and a half or more, across a bridge and along a river, in what I thought must be the general direction of the Schloss Sanssouci. It took a while, but I found

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1141015209237095202006-02-26T20:22:00.000-08:002006-02-27T09:29:05.230-08:00

I don't know yet if Johann Georg Lubach was an ancestor of mine, but in investigating that possibility I've found that he led what looks to have been quite an interesting life and from what I've learned so far I don't think I'd object to having him as an ancestor. I'm not sure how he'd feel about me as a descendant.He was born in 1672 in the town of Moeckern near Leipzig in Saxony and was

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1138641155134867152006-01-29T07:57:00.000-08:002006-01-31T20:33:35.786-08:00

A year or so ago I found a webpage called the Archiv der Franckeschen Stiftungen zu Halle. I didn't know quite what to make of it at the time. But I did find it curious as there were several people listed with my surname. Those people are still listed there and, in point of fact, one more person with my surname has been added to the list.If you click on the link you should get a long list of

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1138164733848424512006-01-22T20:34:00.000-08:002006-01-24T20:53:35.216-08:00

I signed up for Blogshares a few days ago after finding out that one of my visitors had purchased 25% of the imaginary shares in my blog. I joined so I could buy up 50% of the imaginary shares and a controlling interest with imaginary money that Blogshares gives you for signing up. I figured that at 37 cents a share it was too good a deal to pass up.The bad news is that my blog is valued at less

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1137038647063638552006-01-08T18:30:00.000-08:002006-01-11T20:07:23.980-08:00

I exhanged e-mails over the holidays with a third cousin once removed, a granddaughter of my great grandfather's sister. My cousin verified that she lived in the same house with her grandmother for a number of years up until her grandmother's death at age 77 in 1935, when she was twelve years old. She said that her grandmother's brother from Kewaskum came across the state of Wisconsin and stayed

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1136278532483399932006-01-01T00:36:00.000-08:002006-01-07T00:27:14.783-08:00

I spent at least part of my Christmas holiday thirty feet off the ground with my rear end in a sling.My wife and I went to a resort in Palawan, one of the least developed provinces in the Philippines. The island is long and narrow, extending most of the way from Luzon to Borneo on the westernmost side of the archipelago.The resort, El Nido, offered rock-climbing as one of its numerous diversions

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1134389882163986732005-12-11T02:15:00.000-08:002005-12-13T00:59:44.150-08:00

My German immigrant great great grandfather, who I discovered on the internet during the past two years, spent the last six months of his life on the Gulf Coast in Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas in the final months and aftermath of the American Civil War. He took part in only one real battle, the assault on Spanish Fort and Fort Blakeley, the forts on Mobile Bay that kept

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1133171765535759172005-11-27T00:44:00.000-08:002005-11-28T02:18:00.806-08:00

These are a few snapshots I took a few weeks ago on a day when I got up early enough for a round of golf. The pictures were taken at about fifteen minute intervals between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m.. The view is of the Makati highrise district along the midpoint of the Epiphanios De Los Santos, more commonly known as EDSA. Click on the pictures to see enlarged versions of them.I received several e-mails

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1132115904482263712005-11-13T19:12:00.000-08:002005-11-15T20:38:24.526-08:00

When I was on home leave in Seattle several months ago I finally had an opportunity to meet the author, Andrew Ward, in person. My wife taught in the same department at the university as his wife a dozen or so years ago, so I had known about him for quite some time and had read several of his books. He told me had written another one, this time a book about an incident from the Civil War. It

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1131334244282121202005-11-06T18:28:00.000-08:002005-11-07T20:23:53.986-08:00

When I was about six years old my family drove from Kansas to South Bend, Indiana, for a summertime visit to my mother's family. Bud and Carlie Steele were the only grandparents I ever knew, as my dad's parents in Wisconsin had passed on before I was born.The year was 1959. It was the last time the White Sox went to the World Series until just last month. My dad was a big Sox fan then, as my

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1130220858186610482005-10-23T21:01:00.000-07:002005-10-26T09:23:09.816-07:00

Well, I've had a field day with online access to the U.S. census records and I've learned a few things. One of the main things I've learned is that before 1910 my Boettcher ancestors spelled their name with one "t", as Boetcher, instead of the more usual spelling with two "tt"s.I found my great great grandfather, John Boetcher, living in "Heman" township in Dodge County in Wisconsin in 1860,

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1129523048495900112005-10-16T19:21:00.000-07:002005-10-16T21:34:38.240-07:00

Well, I've done it now. I finally broke down and shelled out the bucks for an Ancestry.com membership. Nearly all of the information I've accumulated and posted about my family history on my webpage in the past three years, and here on my blog in the past year, has come from the internet free of charge. So why am I now willing to part with the big bucks? Am I selling out? Do the pay sites

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1128239834449577242005-10-02T00:24:00.000-07:002005-10-15T03:57:59.473-07:00

Ruins of the Mile Long Barracks on Corregidor. The portion in the foreground had served as MacArthur's office until the Japanese Air Force redesigned it as a rock garden.A bronze statue of the late American Caesar, General Douglas MacArthur, on a bluff above the beach at Corregidor, the island fortress he commanded at the mouth of Manila Bay. Across the water behind him is the Bataan Peninsula.

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1127213739280193222005-09-18T02:17:00.000-07:002005-10-30T01:40:11.170-08:00

Two e-mails came in this week from people who found my blog and webpage while searching online for their ancestors.I heard from a great great grandson of the Reverend Alonzo Miller, a man who served in Company B of the 27th Wisconsin. One or more of my posts had mentioned the letters Alonzo exchanged with his wife, Mary, during his one year stint as a replacement with the Union Army in the last

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1126518521541652692005-09-11T00:08:00.000-07:002005-09-12T03:13:05.080-07:00

Several months ago I got an e-mail from a visitor to my webpage. The visitor left a short message along with a link to a blog that he had just started. It only had one or two posts at that point, which generally outlined what he had planned for his blog. And I got the impression then that the "success" of my blog had at least to some degree inspired him to try his hand at blogging.After three

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1125914380193941882005-09-04T01:13:00.000-07:002005-09-05T07:29:22.476-07:00

I haven't seen it yet, but I'm told that my dad on the west coast received a packet of papers last week from his sister in Wisconsin, including some genealogical records, a few obits and some news clippings she's collected over the years.I haven't actually seen these items and probably won't for awhile, but there is some interesting news. I had known that my great grandfather died young at the

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1124859587014758652005-08-21T19:27:00.000-07:002005-08-24T06:16:36.536-07:00

I mention on my webpage that my grandfather was only 13 when his father died. The family apparently sold the homestead in Tilden and moved to nearby Chippewa Falls where my grandfather dropped out of school and worked at a sawmill for the next ten years. I point out that he wasn't listed on the 1910 census for Chippewa because in 1910 he was in Illinois attending classes at the seminary that

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1124360158063412232005-08-14T01:40:00.000-07:002005-08-18T08:44:13.150-07:00

I came across a letter a few days ago concerning my great great grandfather that was published online at the end of May in the Bloomer Advance, an online edition of the community newspaper in Bloomer, Wisconsin, which is the nearest town to the Chippewa County homestead in Tilden where my great grandparents settled around 1880.The letter was written by Vernon Kressin, whose wife, Lois, it seems,

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1122263657292198022005-07-24T18:12:00.000-07:002005-07-24T20:54:17.330-07:00

Home leave is over, so I can go back to blogging after a five week hiatus. I was able to get online a few times during my travels, but not long enough to put together a post. And I think it was good to get away from it for awhile, as it gave me a chance to gain some perspective and consider ways to both broaden and focus my appeal. My wife and I got together with family members and with quite

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1118806624839776112005-06-12T19:27:00.000-07:002005-06-15T15:17:57.693-07:00

Like a pair of gypsies we soar down the skyway. Home leave is not yet offically underway until next week as my wife has an annual meeting to attend, so we're stuck here in Hawaii on duty travel for a few days until I can get re-adjusted to driving between instead of astride the white lines, stopping at red lights, going on green and remembering that it's considered rude to enter a stream of

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1118061078829507772005-06-05T03:39:00.000-07:002005-06-06T06:33:50.513-07:00

Watching a movie on television is a little different when someone you know is in it. Last night I saw the suspense thriller 'Nick of Time' on television for the first time, not realizing until midway through that that's what it was. But by the end of the movie it became clear to me that this was the movie I had read about on the internet several years ago. I had googled it up because someone I

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1117446090794036542005-05-29T01:21:00.000-07:002005-05-30T07:00:56.556-07:00

The news here in Manila over America's Memorial Day weekend is that two octogenarian veterans of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during WWII may finally be ready to surrender. The soldiers, Yoshio Yamakawa, 87, and Tszuzuki Nakauchi, 85, apparently decided to remain on the island of Mindanao and take their chances in the jungle rather than return to Japan when the rest of the Japanese

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1116838595693831242005-05-22T01:38:00.000-07:002005-05-23T03:30:29.953-07:00

One of the earliest posts on this blog concerns the outpost on the island of Brazos Santiago where I'm convinced that my great great grandfather was stationed when he fell ill. He was apparently sent from there across the Gulf of Mexico and up the Mississippi to the hospital at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis where he died and was buried among the Civil War casualties on July 27, 1865, shortly

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1116167264744607392005-05-15T06:28:00.000-07:002005-05-15T07:27:44.773-07:00

A little more than two years ago on a Google search I came across a cemetery near Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, that had been transcribed and posted online. Virtually everything I have been able to discover about my father's family in those two years has now been posted on this blog or on my website and none of it would have been possible without the online transcription of the Tilden Emanuel

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1115550444639871302005-05-08T04:07:00.000-07:002005-05-08T04:07:24.696-07:00

Me on my webcam. 

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1115025304879261952005-05-01T01:30:00.000-07:002005-05-08T03:51:36.516-07:00

I haven't been getting enough comments on my blog lately, so I've decided to do something a little more interactive this week. Two years ago I found a site for a cemetery with a listing for someone I thought might be my great great grandfather. A little more than a year ago I was able to confirm that that listing was in fact my great great grandfather. Nearly all of the research I have done has

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1114438236152090012005-04-24T04:54:00.000-07:002005-04-25T07:43:10.566-07:00

I once had a Greek landlord, a few decades ago, one who had a penchant for suing people. His litigiousness, in fact, knew few if any bounds. He never sued me because I was usually far enough in arrears on my rent as to be useful on an ongoing basis as an unremunerated property manager, occasional paper server and blue moon propagandist. My extended exposure to the liberal arts had revived feudal

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1113908710182228492005-04-17T02:52:00.000-07:002005-04-19T18:11:20.930-07:00

This summer I'll be visiting the U.S. again, and the trip, as usual in odd-numbered years, will include a few days in Milwaukee to see my mother-in-law. I'm looking forward to it. Seeing my mother-in-law again is, of course, always a joy. She's 84 now and still gets around pretty well, but the reason I'm really excited is that about a year ago I googled up an item on the net that I've been

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1113218888989355622005-04-10T04:27:00.000-07:002005-04-13T03:30:52.206-07:00

I didn't find time to surf member blogs on Blog Explosion this weekend so nearly all of the visitors to my blog the past two days have been the result of people hunting up terms on search engines like Yahoo and Google. One visitor who Googled in was searching the terms "Wawasee+country+kennel". I can't imagine what they were looking for, but my blog was the fifth listing on the first page of

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1112617429857011832005-04-03T04:16:00.000-07:002005-04-18T09:02:02.143-07:00

I have two television sets. One of them is on the blink. It has been that way for about six months. It's a Sharp 14" Multi-System that we bought about ten years ago and we only use it now on those rare occasions when there are two worthwhile things on television at the same time. We keep it in the bedroom and pay for a second cable connection, so I figure it might as well be hooked to a

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1111930739024172822005-03-27T04:39:00.000-08:002005-03-28T04:32:37.450-08:00

I only met my Great Uncle Leonard once that I can recall. He was married to my grandmother's younger sister, Aunt Ethel. My father's mother died the year I was born so I never met my grandmother. And by then my grandfather had been dead for twenty years. He had been an Evangelical minister in lower Wisconsin during the Prohibition era. His parishes were in several small towns in south central

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1111472717371345452005-03-20T20:35:00.000-08:002005-03-21T22:27:10.473-08:00

Some readers may have noticed that not all of the sites listed on my Blogroll are actually blogs. A few are websites that I think are particularly worthwhile and might be of interest to people who aren't totally bored by the things I write about. Lately I've been checking out my mother's family tree, also known as the 'Descendants of George Steele', and trying to make some sense of the massive

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1110734787852768772005-03-13T05:31:00.000-08:002005-03-13T09:26:27.860-08:00

My mother was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana. Her family had lived there since the Civil War, but they also had holdings downstate in Fulton County between the Wabash and the Tippecanoe where my grandfather was born. While not rich by any means, her family had been reasonably prosperous until the Great Depression, which began before my mother reached school age. All four of my

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1110173534862356372005-03-06T18:52:00.000-08:002005-03-07T03:29:10.383-08:00

Last week I threatened all of my reader(s?) with the possibility that I might start rolling my blog. Picture me rolling a tire down an empty highway on my way to repair and/or replace a tire that has left my vehicle stranded miles from nowhere along the shoulder of the road. This, in fact, was the second time I have leveled this threat, so lest readers start to suspect that I am all bluff and no

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1109607228210063542005-02-27T06:15:00.000-08:002005-03-06T18:29:30.056-08:00

I've been blogging for nearly six months now. Generally I've maintained my focus on online genealogy and the Civil War and so far I haven't generated much of a following, despite the fact that after pornography, music downloads and, more recently, blogging, those subjects are among the most popular uses for the internet.So far only one other blog has bothered to list my blog on their blogroll.

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1109006532087737892005-02-20T04:43:00.000-08:002005-11-15T06:12:30.203-08:00

The Negro, who earnestly desires to mingle his race with that of the European, cannot do so; while the Indian, who might succeed to a certain extent, disdains to make the attempt. The servility of the one dooms him to slavery, the pride of the other to death. Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America 1832My mother's family had

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1108377108930656862005-02-13T02:21:00.000-08:002005-02-14T09:01:17.746-08:00

I've found more information about the Godeffroy family and their shipping dynasty. It's relevant to me not only because I lived in the South Pacific for nearly a decade, but also because finding the ship on which my ancestors crossed the Atlantic to America may require learning a bit more about international shipping in the middle of the 19th century. I've included a link to a chapter from a book

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1107774610275912302005-02-06T02:02:00.000-08:002005-02-07T06:36:16.320-08:00

I mention on my webpage that my great great grandfather's unit in the Civil War, the 27th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, was commanded by a German immigrant, Colonel Conrad Krez. In addition to being a colonel (and during the siege of Mobile a brevet brigadier general), Krez was also a well established lawyer and a fairly renowned poet. He was described by Wolfgang Diehl, his most recent

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1107149714342497422005-01-30T19:44:00.000-08:002005-01-31T03:16:42.760-08:00

Visitors to my webpage will be aware that my interest in genealogy began about two years ago when I found a cemetery transcription online that included my great grandparents and several other German immigrants, who moved with them in the 1870s from Sheboygan County near the shore of Lake Michigan to Chippewa County near the Minnesota stateline. The cemetery transcript led me to some 1910 census

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1106570994870641422005-01-23T04:40:00.000-08:002005-01-26T06:12:54.113-08:00

A ship called the 'Susanne Godeffroy' sailed from Hamburg in September of 1863 and arrived a few months later in Queensland, Australia, becoming the nucleus of the first German colony in Queensland, a settlement that its numerous descendants now refer to as the Bethania Colony. Two years later another ship, the 'Wandrahm' arrived there, significantly expanding the original settlement. One of

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1105939860415481242005-01-16T21:07:00.000-08:002005-01-17T04:33:32.476-08:00

I'm posting a link for a website about Schloss Wartin, a Pomeranian manor house originally built three centuries ago in the days of Frederick the Great. I mention it because it's quite close to several villages in the Uckermark that I'm told have church records listing the Lubach surname as among their inhabitants as far back as that period. I doubt that any of my ancestors spent much time at the

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1105334999934026852005-01-09T20:24:00.000-08:002005-01-21T06:33:02.106-08:00

I've been looking at the Civil War rosters for Wisconsin recently and am beginning to wonder if perhaps I have more than one great great grandfather who fought in the war. My great grandfather, William Lubach, was married to a woman whose maiden name was Johannah Boettcher. Those who have visited my webpage will know that they are both buried in a small cemetery in Tilden township near Chippewa

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1104722236878903352005-01-02T18:48:00.000-08:002005-01-02T19:52:47.726-08:00

I spent Christmas on a beach on a small island near the large island of Palawan, which separates the Sulu Sea from the South China Sea, and was windsurfing on the 26th in the hours immediately following the tsunami. We didn't learn about the wave until we arrived back in Manila on the 27th. Reaching our resort required a four engine propeller plane to get us to an unpaved landing strip in a

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1103515939967172542004-12-19T19:23:00.000-08:002005-01-06T03:24:58.773-08:00

I've done some more reading and found additional details concerning William Ebert, the soldier with the 12th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry who I think may have been my great great grandmother's younger brother. The Regimental History for the 12th includes a fairly detailed account of the Battle of Bald Hill outside of Atlanta on July 21st and 22nd, 1864, and William Ebert is specifically mentioned

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1102911058058887942004-12-12T18:55:00.000-08:002004-12-12T20:39:29.680-08:00

I received a few e-mails this week in reply to e-mails I sent. Nothing unusual about that. But I do have some news as a result. I heard from The American Civil War Homepage and am informed that later this month my webpage and I will be listed as their contact for descendants of Civil War soldiers who served in the 27th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. More than a thousand men served in the 27th and

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1102307848142498692004-12-05T19:55:00.000-08:002004-12-06T05:16:56.773-08:00

I signed up with Blog Explosion about a month ago and this is only my third or fourth post as a BE member. Belonging has greatly increased the amount of traffic I get which I guess is the main idea, but the vast majority of those visitors have been of the thirty seconds and out variety. I've gotten a couple of encouraging comments from a few people who have read my blog and managed to find their

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1101705778874227632004-11-28T20:11:00.000-08:002004-11-29T02:08:43.220-08:00

I've returned feeling refreshed after a two-week travel break with very limited access to the internet. If you must know, I spent a week on Rarotonga and a night on Aitutaki Lagoon. Perhaps at some point I'll post a few pictures. Having just returned to Manila, perhaps it's appropriate to mention a link I found concerning the whereabouts of the son of the late General Douglas MacArthur, who

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1099887292781664172004-11-07T19:02:00.000-08:002004-11-08T02:42:19.283-08:00

I mentioned that my great-great grandfather's final posting in the Civil War was on the island of Brazos Santiago at the mouth of the Rio Grande. The terrain of that locale was well described when American troops were first stationed there during the Mexican War. Links on that page include an enlargeable map, a more recent photograph of the remains of CampBelknap and a sketch from 1846 of the

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1099289234091809142004-10-31T19:30:00.000-08:002004-10-31T22:24:54.830-08:00

Here's another link, one I came across yesterday in my surfing, that I bring up because we are now within forty-eight hours of the 2004 election, the only poll that counts. I think it's fascinating that according to polls the predicted blue and red state outcomes in the electoral college are again following, with only a few exceptions, the old Mason-Dixon line. Indiana is solidly red; Maryland is

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1098676825851689102004-10-24T19:03:00.000-07:002004-10-24T21:03:44.926-07:00

I'm posting a link for a blog I found that gives some good insight into life these days for visitors to Berlin. Two years ago this week I was in Berlin for two days and three nights just to have a look around. At that point I was only beginning to develop an interest in family history. I had located the cemetery and the census records for Tilden and Chippewa Falls that are mentioned on my webpage

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1098075776437960982004-10-17T19:30:00.000-07:002004-10-18T03:14:31.930-07:00

I've found a regimental listing for a William Ebert who I think may be related. If I'm correct that William and Maria D. Ebert in Scott Township in Sheboygan County were the parents of Sophie (Ebert) Heise and Marie (Ebert) Lubach, then William and August Ebert would have been the younger brothers of Sophie and Marie. William was 16 in 1860 and August was 14. The State of Wisconsin census lists

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1097406844700189142004-10-10T03:13:00.000-07:002004-10-10T05:49:46.673-07:00

I received an e-mail this week from someone in Germany with a Lubach ancestor. Her Lubach ancestor is old enough to have been the mother of my great-great grandfather, or perhaps an aunt or a cousin. Her recent post to a German genealogy mailing list included a link that contains a map of Huguenot village churches in a part of Brandenburg called the Uckermark. The village of Wrechow, mentioned on

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1096866359497826282004-10-03T20:31:00.000-07:002004-10-18T19:18:18.870-07:00

The Pinnacled Dim website has been up and running now for a little over two weeks. So far I haven't been inundated with offers to buy adspace. My aim is not to attract traffic. I simply want the information I've gathered to be on the record and accessible to the few dozen or so people directly descended from a few of my ancestors. But I would also like to think that the site tells a story, one

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1096206607734735432004-09-26T05:07:00.000-07:002004-10-18T21:40:27.163-07:00

I can't think of a better birthday present to have gotten than to have had an actual visitor to my website, one who took the time to post a comment in my guestbook, quite a positive and encouraging comment, I might add, from someone believed to be eligible to post on my blog. Posting privileges require an invitation that only I at present, as blog administrator, can extend and to do so I need the

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8387802.post-1095647916756147272004-09-19T19:10:00.000-07:002004-09-19T19:38:36.756-07:00

Greetings to all visitors to the Pinnacled Dim Website and to prospective members of the Intense Inane Multi-User Weblog. Members enjoy the enormous privilege of posting on this blog. Visitors and/or guests are limited by the great great grandfather clause to placing comments on the posts. Membership is restricted, at least for the time being, to direct descendants of my great great

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05061304265345986242noreply@blogger.com2