The theme for Week 44 is "Challenging." Some ancestors are easy to research. Others, not so much. Who has been challenging to research? Another way you could approach the prompt is an ancestor who challenged something in their life. Check out all the 2024 themes.
Overall, I think Genealogy is Challenging. In fact, it is one of the reasons I like doing Genealogy. I even tell people that if genealogy was easy, then everyone would be doing it.
Don’t get me wrong, there are days that are easy. That I sit in front of my computer, and everything just seems to fall in place. However, the normal day involves, some easy, some difficult and a bunch of challenging aspects to figure out.
Many years ago, an acquaintance of mine, exclaimed with glee “I don’t know why you say Genealogy is hard. Last weekend, I went on the computer and by the end of the night I had traced my family back to the 1700’s”. I looked her straight in the eye and asked, how do you know that is really your family? Did you verify all the information or were you just relying on other people’s trees and hoping they knew what they were doing. She gave me the “deer in the highlights” look.
So here is my disclaimer: if you are a person who just goes from one tree to another, collecting names, stop! Those could be your people, but how do you really know unless you do the work. I will give you some examples.
My husband’s great grandfather is Ernest Kaeding. He was born on Sep 29, 1868 most likely in Germany. He married Lydia Erbrecht in 1902 in Shawano, Wisconsin. They had at least 13 children. I researched all of this from the Shawano County Courthouse. The birth records I did find, would tell me what number child they were and often gave the first names of the other children.
In 1900, I have him living in Tigerton, Shawano County, Wisconsin. A Single male born Sep 1869, living with his widowed mother and several of his siblings.
However, one of my husband’s cousins has him in 1900, living in Chicago with his widowed father and several of his siblings. His birth date is given as Mar 1877.
First of all, you can see, these two Ernest’s are not the same age or even close to the same age. Their siblings’ names are quite different too. This cousin has Ernest married twice and have children born around the same time. This cousin not only has my Ernest’s wife but another woman too. My Ernest was married in Shawano in 1902 while their Ernest was married in Hammond, Indiana in 1906. My Ernest stayed in Tigerton, Shawano, Wisconsin while the other Ernest moved from Illinois to Indiana and later to Minnesota. The other Ernest even produced a death record on Sep 18, 1959 in Minnesota. My Ernest also produced a death record on May 2, 1931 in Shawano County when he died in a car accident.
Moral of this example: Genealogy is Challenging. People have the same name, lived in the same area and was born and married around the same time. However, you have to do the work, follow the leads and determine if these Ernest(s) were two people or one, living a double live. Since Ernest could not die twice, this is clearly two people.
Another example: My husband’s 2nd great-grandfather is Friedrich Theodore Christian Martin Gloede born Nov 12, 1842 in German. Died Jan 3, 1901 in Oshkosh, Winnebago, Wisconsin. His Find a Grave memorial is 109073583. However, the Ancestry Hints that come up for this person refers to Friedrich Carl Heinrich Theodor Gloede born Apr 6, 1843 and died May 2, 1900. His Find A Grave memorial is 80195156. Thus, there are many trees where people have records for both of these men in their tree and claim it is the same person.
In fact, one of my husband’s cousins has done this. Her tree comes up in the list of hints, showing my husband’s ancestor with his wife and the Sheboygan County man’s grave information.
However, when I used the search option, the magnifying glass to the right of my person’s profile page, the list of records is more accurate and appears to be for my person. The first record is the Find a Grave for my husband’s ancestor along with the next six records listed. It’s the eighth record that brings up the Find A Grave for the Sheboygan man.
Moral of this example: Genealogy is Challenging. We have to look at all the records, see if the information fits what we know about our person. It might mean following the life of a person who isn’t our relative.
Another thing that makes Genealogy Challenging, not everything is found on-line. Let me repeat this, NOT EVERYTHING IS FOUND ON-LINE! I explained previously how I went to the Shawano Courthouse to look at the actual records. This is because the index that Ancestry offers on-line only goes so far. It was the actual records that told me the order of the children and gave me names of the previous children already born. I found a few stillborn records (deaths only) for children of Ernest Kaeding. After looking up the births, I switched to the death records and found those children who died young or were stillborn. To make things even more challenging, they repeated the names of their deceased children. Thus, if a child died, they didn’t have a problem reusing that child’s name for a future birth. They had an August Gottlieb Kading who had been born and died in 1912. Then in 1918, they had another August Kading who had been born and died. They had two stillborn children that they didn’t name, one from 1915 and another from 1917.
Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!
