A Muddy Pool

Almost have the full tally of Great-Great-Grandparents. Just missing one couple and the maiden name of another. Here's what I have so far:

August Berg (Norweigan)
Hannah Beck (Norweigan)

Wilhelm Supper (German)
Anna Waltz (German)

Joseph McGuirk (1st generation Irish-American)
Mary Sullivan (1st generation Irish-American)

Luke Stevenson (English)
Francis Thompson (English)

Hilbert Bahruth (German)
Mathilda Wegener (German)

Unknown King
Unknown ????

William Kavanagh (Irish-American)
Barbara Prinz (German)

Daniel Dennis (Irish-American)
Sarah ???? (Scottish-American?)

So, I'm 5/16 German, 1/4 Irish, 1/8 English, 1/8 Norweigan, 1/16 Scottish, and 1/8 unaccounted for.

One more great-great grandparent's name: Anna Marie Waltz. Some nice person with lots of energy is sending me oodles of info on the Berg side of the family. Death, birth, and marriage certificates, burial plots, all sorts of stuff. Neat thing is, we are only related by marriage. I love obsessive people.

I was contacted by a second cousin, Keirda Bahruth, who is out in California. Very enthusiastic to share info! Sent me four emails over the course of half an hour.

So much happening with the genealogy stuff. I've been contacted by three cousins in the last month who came on the web page and offered me new information. Also, mom brought up a CD of scans of some old pictures she had (and more to come) that I've put into the scrapbook and now show up on some of the webpages. I've been updating the web pages, too, given all of the database updates I've made lately. Can't wait to get the rest of the pictures in. Also probably going to put together a family webpage just with the pictures and commentary.

Now, to sleep.

I was just contacted by Michael McGuirk (first cousin once removed, whose father was my granduncle), who stumbled on my web page and noticed we were related. He passed along some information about his branch of the family and I'm hoping he can help me with a detail or two I've been stuck on with the Bergs (namely, his grandmother's maiden name, which should be on his father's birth certificate). It's cool to stumble on relatives I never knew about who know the people I knew growing up.

Finally found Christian Berg's parents, so now I have six of the eight pairs of great-great-grandparents pinned down:

August & Hannah Berg (Norweigan)
Wilhelm & Anna Supper (German)
John & Margaret McGuirk (first generation Irish-American)
Hilbert & Mathilda Bahruth (German)
William & Barbara Kavanagh (first generation Irish-American & German)
Daniel & Sarah Dennis (first generation Irish-American & possibly Scottish-American)

Of the missing two pairs, one is English and the other was born in NY with no hint of ethnicity. Glad to finally have cracked the Bergs, I was despairing of cracking that block.

I made the mistake of branching out my genealogical research to Autumn's family. Now, every branch thus far of my family has come over to the States in the 19th century, with few exceptions. Relatively small families, been a lot more work since I started on the cousins but it is manageable.

Just doing Autumn's paternal line, however, has flooded me with thirteen generations of meticulous, detailed records of families with around ten children each. Every branch I trace back goes to the mid 17th century in Massachusettes and half the people in New England are related to them (not surprising since they've been in the country THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS. I can't do it. There's too much. As it is, I need to spin it off into a seperate database to avoid swamping my own family data. It's crazed. I'm utterly burned out now, so I'm going to bed. Must get Kingmans out of my head! AAAAHHHH!

Updates on my life:

( Genealogy News )

( Professional Writing )

( Work )

( Life )

German has pulled into the lead with 5/16.
Irish has fallen back to 1/4.
Norweigan and English are tied at 1/8.
A possible drop of Scottish at 1/16 and 1/8 unaccounted for (the Kings).

Made a breakthrough with the Kavanaghs that have me tracing them back to the boat. Currently working out the cousins (need to call Uncle Den and Cousin Anne again). The more I delve into our genealogy, the more thankful I am that neither my brother nor I are named John or William.

I just got an email back from a second cousin once removed (that is, there's a generation difference between us and our common ancestor is her great-grandfather) and she has filled me in on all sorts of stuff I didn't have concerning the family. It turns out I had my great-great-grandfather's name wrong as I misread a census record. She was able to give me the year of his birth and his wife's maiden name, too, which gets me out of the dead-end I've been in for months there.

She's also nice enough to offer to scan and send me a picture of his family from 1901-2! I'm just so excited. More later. I'll be updating my genealogy page tonight!

Eric

The current tally of great-grandparents is:

Berg (Norweigan)
Supper (German)
McGuirk (Irish)
???? (English)
Bahruth (German)
King (????)
Kavanagh (Irish)
Dennis (Irish)

So, Irish is winning with 3/8, German is a strong second with 1/4, and Norweigan and English are trailing with an 1/8 each. The mystery eighth could bring Irish up to a full quarter, bring German into a tie with Irish, catapult one of those in third to tie with German for second, or just add a new contender tied for third.

Bets, anyone? King certainly seems like an English surname, but it could also be a name picked up in immigration (Koenig, or something similar).

(Like anyone cares)

So, there appear to be three groups of Bahruths living in this country. One is my line, which started out in Brooklyn and has branchs on Long Island (Bernhardt's family), the Hudson Valley (Charles' family), and North Carolina (Gustav's family). One settled originally in Illinois but has since moved to Kansas with a branch out in California. The last is based around New Jersey and may or may not be related to my line (can't find a credible link).

I love odd names. They make my work so much easier.

So, it turns out that my great-great grandfather Daniel Dennis spent time as a convict at Sing Sing, working in the quarry. I'm going to splurge next paycheck and pay the Ossining Historical Society $20 to have them search the prison records, since I'm more than a little curious why he was in there.

I'm getting seriously obsessive with this project. I dream about genealogy and wake up in the morning with leads I thought up in my sleep to follow. I work on it before work, in breaks at work, and practically all night when I get home (West Wing draws me away). I'm having a ball, though!

Thanks to my cousin Nancy, I now have all the surnames for my grandparents (Berg, McGuirk, Bahruth, and Kavanagh). I'm halfway towards getting the other four for my great-grandparents (Dennis, Kiesel). So far, the ethnic mix is very northern european. Of the great-grandparents, one is Norweigan, two are Irish, three are German, one is English, and one is Scottish.

Oh, for anyone interested, I exported what I've done so far to a webpage:

http://www.gothpoodle.com/eric/genealogy

I spent the entire weekend working on my family tree. Had a ball. Dropped $30 on a subscription to Ancestry.com and spent hours poring over scans of census records. Found out lots of stuff but also have a few frustrating dead ends (damn the tradition of wives taking their husband's surnames!). I have no idea where the sudden passion to learn about my family history. Probably has to do with reproductive urges. Of course, that goes to say a lot about how I screw my genes on a regular basis.

Eric's genes: "You want to have children now."
Eric's brain: "Ooooh! Charts!"

Ran into something really compelling, too. An address and phone number for a man who may be my granduncle. I'm going to write him a letter and see if I can verify it and, if I can, get some information about that side of the family from him. It's pretty exciting actually.