Were My German Ancestors Fortyeighters? 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Migration”

 

Part of a Wave of German Immigrants: Hoffmans, Funks, and Streus

Johann Friedrich Streu: 1808-1883 (Maternal Third-Great Grandfather)
Friederica Christina Dethloff Streu: 1804-1883 (Maternal Third-Great Grandmother)
Sophia Maria Christiane Streu: 1840-1922 (Maternal Second-Great Grandmother)
Johannes Heinrich Wilhelm Hoffman: 1836-1906  (Maternal Second-Great Grandfather)
Charles Nicolas Funk: 1817-1889 (Maternal Second-Great Grandfather)

A friend who is also working on her family tree recently asked me if my German ancestors were “Forty-eighters”. I had no idea what the term meant, and headed off to do some research. Wikipedia provided me with a basic working definition of the group:

“The Forty-eighters (48ers) were Europeans who participated in or supported the Revolutions of 1848 that swept Europe, particularly those who were expelled from or emigrated from their native land following those revolutions…In the German Confederation, the Forty-eighters favoured unification of Germany, a more democratic government, and guarantees of human rights.” (3)

Wikipedia noted that after the revolutions failed, many of these supporters elected to emigrate, heading for Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Ancestry’s article on German immigration stated:

“Between 1848 and 1861, many Germans, known as “Forty-Eighters”, immigrated to the United States. While the exact numbers are unknown, the best estimates are that between 4,000 and 10,000 Forty-Eighters immigrated along with many other Germans who arrived at that time.” (2)

“Forty-Eighters could be found across the Midwestern landscape from the Dakotas to Ohio.” (2)

Illustration of Forty-Eighters boarding ships to emigrate from Germany

So were my German ancestors part of this movement? First, I needed to check on the years they arrived in the United States—did their arrival dates fall within the period from 1848 to 1861?

Yes, they all did. My second-great-grandfather Johannes Heinrich Wilhelm Hoffman (Americanized name of Henry), was born in Oedelum, Hanover, Germany on June 4, 1836, and arrived in the United States in 1855 at the age of nineteen. He would have only been twelve years old when the attempted 1848 revolution occurred, so it seems unlikely he was involved in the movement, unless his family members, who all remained in Germany, were supporters.

Henry and Sophia Hoffman

Henry’s eventual wife and my second-great-grandmother, Sophia Maria Christiane Streu, was born May 29, 1840 in Mecklenburg, Germany, to parents Johann and Freidrica Streu. The family seems to have arrived in America in 1857 when Sophia was sixteen. Her family moved to the Milwaukee area, and that is where Sophia met and married Henry. Milwaukee was one of the areas that Forty-Eighters settled in, so Sophia’s father Johann could have been a follower of the movement.

My remaining German immigrant ancestor was another second-great-grandfather, Charles Nicolas Funk, the father of my great-grandmother Hellena Funk. Charles was born May 12, 1817 in Prussia. He appears on the 1860 census as a cabinetmaker in Oskaloosa, Iowa, and was naturalized November 8, 1864. His arrival date in America is unclear, but was obviously prior to the 1860 census and at least five years before his 1864 naturalization—five years of continuous residence was required by the government. He was certainly old enough to have been involved in 1848, and as a cabinetmaker, he shared some of the characteristics of Forty-Eighters, who were more likely to have been educated or tradesmen rather than the very poor.

What other characteristics did the Forty-Eighters share? Many of them joined the Turners or formed Turner groups in the United States. According to Wikipedia, “Turners are members of German-American gymnastic clubs called Turnvereine. They promoted German culture, physical culture, and liberal politics.” (4)  I don’t believe any of my second-great-grandparents were members.

In addition, many Forty-eighters supported the Union in the Civil War. While I know that Charles Funk registered for the Union draft, he was already in his mid-forties by that time, so he was apparently never drafted and never served. Henry Hoffman also registered for the draft while living in Wisconsin in 1863, but also never served. He continued to farm and father more children throughout the war years before moving to Minnesota in 1870.

I do know that all three families—Hoffman, Streu and Funk—ended up settling near Mankato, Minnesota. As seen in the map below, that area of southeastern Minnesota welcomed large numbers of German immigrants. Mankato had a German-language Lutheran church that my ancestors attended, and a large German population. The nearby community of New Ulm was all German, and was definitely settled by Forty-Eighters. New Ulm still has an active Turner Hall and Turner group.

1872 map of German population, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

There is no definitive evidence proving that my three German ancestors arrived as part of the Forty-Eighters movement, although all of them arrived around the same time period and settled near the Forty-Eighter community of New Ulm, Minnesota. I will never know whether their political beliefs led to their decision to emigrate or if they were simply part of a larger German migratory movement. Ancestry reports that nearly six million Germans immigrated between 1820 and 1910, and only a small percentage of those migrants were Forty-Eighters.

 

Sources:

1. “German Immigration in 1848. https://www.ancestry.com/historical-insights/migration-settlement/immigration/german-immigration-1848

2. The Forty-Eighters of Germany Come to America.  https://www.junctionbooks.net/blog-2/the-forty-eighters-of-germany-come-to-america

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty-eighters

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turners

DNA Reveals a Secret: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Family Secret”

 

Two Siblings Each Give Up a Child for Adoption

 

With the advent of widespread DNA testing, family secrets about children’s parentage are getting revealed. I have been contacted by adoptees or descendants of adoptees who can tell we are related through DNA results on Ancestry who hope that I have information about their birth families. Two of those contacts ended up being a big surprise for me. I realized that they were more closely related to each other than I’d suspected. Each one had the same grandparents, meaning that one each of their parents were siblings. These siblings had each given up a baby for adoption years apart and may have never known the other sibling made the same choice.

Since relatives of these siblings are still alive, I won’t be including any names, locations or years. So yes, this will be a short post.

So how did I determine these siblings were the parents in question? I used the Shared Matches function on Ancestry, that allowed me to see how the adoptees/adoptee descendants were related to me and to my various cousins. When I found the adoptees matched one step closer to a particular set of cousins than expected, I knew the parent was a member of that family.

Once I had that family targeted, I was able to figure out which sibling in the family was the likely parent. In one instance I received verbal confirmation from a family member who knew a little bit about one of the unplanned pregnancies, and a birth certificate obtained by the adoptee confirmed the other.

I don’t know for certain, but I believe that one of the two siblings never told any family members about their child, while the other sibling only told their parents, who kept the secret as long as they lived. I doubt either sibling ever knew they had a shared secret in common, or that they had both made the same difficult decision to give up their child.

I made the decision to keep the secret as well. The adoptees got their answers, and I left it to them to decide what they want to do with the information they have uncovered. As for my Ancestry tree, these adoptee cousins are connected to my tree, with explanations in the private “Notes” function. All the important parties are shown as “living” on my public tree, whether they really are or not, so no one else can see the names and relationships. I wrote up what I learned for my own personal genealogy research records. But that is where this information will remain. Those two parents wanted the information to remain a secret, and I feel it is not my place to reveal it to our extended family.

 

Sources:

DNA double helix horizontal by Jerome Walker. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DNA_double_helix_horizontal.png

What Happened to Isadora? 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Challenge”

Divorcee? Second Marriage? Early Death? The Mystery of Isadora Macbeth

Isadora Macbeth: 1876-? (Maternal First Cousin 3x Removed)

 

Female ancestors can be a source of frustration in genealogy. They can inexplicably disappear from records, leaving me to question whether they died or simply married and changed surnames. I wonder whether their death or marriage records exist but are just not yet available on Ancestry or Family Search, or whether they never existed in the first place or have been destroyed. Isadora Macbeth is one of those frustrating ancestors. She exists in a few records: I know when she was born, that she got married, and that she received a bequest in a will. But after that? Poof! She’s gone. So what happened to Isadora?

Isadora Macbeth was born July 7, 1876 in Blue Earth County, Minnesota. Her parents were Collin Macbeth and Ellen Downing Macbeth. She was the youngest of their six children. Curiously, the birth records seem to list her a male rather than a female, but I believe this was a transcription error, where the transcriber didn’t see the “a” on the end of Isadora, and the name was misspelled in the birth record index as Isidor with an “I” rather than an “a”. As a result, the transcriber assumed the child was male. Here is the index entry for Isadora’s birth.

Isadora appears on the 1880 census as a three-year-old daughter, so her sex was properly recorded there. Tragically, her father died three years later at the fairly young age of forty-nine. Collin had been a stock trader, and Isadora’s eldest brother Charles appears to have taken over the business. Perhaps he supported Isadora, her mother and any other siblings who were still minors until they were able to support themselves. As there are no 1890 census records, I don’t know.

Isadora’s next appearance in records comes in 1897, when she married a newly-minted attorney named Morton Wilkinson Brewster. A news article on the wedding notes the couple was “quietly married in this city (Mankato) last evening by Probate Judge Mead, but the fact did not leak out until this afternoon…The wedding was a surprise to their friends.” This news item seems to hint at some unusual haste in the marriage and perhaps a secret courtship that surprised their acquaintances as well.

The marriage did not result in a child, nor did it last. Morton Brewster married a woman named Maud Allen on December 29, 1903, just six years after his marriage to Isadora. I have found no divorce records, so I am unsure exactly when they separated. I had difficulty finding Morton on the 1900 census. I finally resorted to searching the entire 1900 census record for Wells, Minnesota where Morton and Isadora lived, and found only a partial entry—just the surname Brewster, that he had a wife who had no children, and that he was an attorney. It appears they were still married at that point.

Isadora’s mother Ellen died on July 14, 1905. She left a will that had been written a couple years earlier and lists Isadora as married. Interestingly, Ellen treated Isadora differently than her other children in the will. Isadora’s sister Jennie and brothers John, Colin and Frederick, each received lots of property in Mankato. Isadora received only a “life estate” in lot 5 of block 19 in Wells, Minnesota. Following her death, the lot was to be given to three of Isadora’s siblings.

Why the difference in treatment? Morton practiced law in Wells, Minnesota, and he and Isadora lived there. I hypothesize that the lot in question contained their home, which would mean that Ellen had purchased their home for them. Perhaps Isadora’s marriage was already crumbling when Ellen wrote the will in 1902, and Ellen was trying to ensure that Morton didn’t get his hands on the property. Obviously, Isadora was already divorced by the time Ellen’s estate was probated in 1905, as Morton had already remarried by that point. I’m sure Isadora would have found ownership of the property more valuable in 1905 than a life interest, so Ellen’s attempt to ensure Isadora had a place to live ended up leaving her without financial assets.

So what happened to Isadora after her divorce? I found a marriage record in Wisconsin for her. She had taken back her maiden name of Macbeth, and married Arthur Edward Hankin, a musician and telegraph operator, on Valentine’s Day, 1906. They married in Arthur’s hometown of Sparta, Wisconsin.  

After that marriage, Isadora disappears. I believe I have found another marriage record for Arthur a few years later. If it is for the same Arthur Hankin, did he and Isadora divorce? Did Isadora die?

I looked at other family trees on Ancestry that include Isadora, and I looked at the wiki tree on FamilySearch. None of these trees includes a death record or even a death date for Isadora. Like me , those researchers have found no end-of-life records.

Perhaps someday I will find a record or records that gives a glimpse of Isadora Macbeth’s life post-1906. Until then, Isadora remains a challenge.

 

Sources:

Isadora Macbeth birth record. "Minnesota, County Marriages, 1853-1983," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939Z-BPTV-G?cc=1803974&wc=MRJR-VZ9%3A146277801 : 15 May 2020), 004540653 > image 998 of 2162; county courthouses, Minnesota. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939Z-BPTV-G?i=997

Marriage Certificate for Morton Brewster’s second marriage. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939Z-YP2W-D?view=index&action=view&cc=1803974

Ellen Brewster Will Record, 1905. Minnesota, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1801-1925. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/9070/images/007667673_00153?pId=4632107

Marriage record for Isadore May Macbeth and Arthur Edward Hankin. Wisconsin, U.S., Marriage Index, 1808-1907. Vol. 4, page 490. https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Marriage/MR1516492

Courting Couple: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Favorite Photo”

 

Ivan and Nora In Love: My Grandparents In Front of Their Future Home

Ivan Macbeth: 1904-1972 (Maternal Grandfather)
Nora Hoffman: 1899-1994 (Materna Grandmother)

 

I loved this photo as soon as I saw it in my grandmother’s old photo album. I feel that it visually captures a special moment in my grandparents’ lives—the point where they knew they were going to build a life together, but before their April 14, 1926 marriage actually started that chapter of their lives . The photo’s background also serves as a striking metaphor for that pivotal moment.

The photo depicts my grandparents standing against the roadcut carved into the hillside below the farmhouse they would move into after their marriage. Roads in the area were changing from narrow, muddy dirt roads traversed by horses, into gravel or paved roads wide enough for cars to pass each other. The county was widening and flattening out the road that wound from Eagle Lake towards Mankato. The equipment had cut down through the hillside to make the new roadbed. While my grandfather wasn’t a tall man—probably about 5 feet 8 inches, and he and Grandma Nora were sitting on a dirt shelf rather than standing up, given that there was at least three to four feet of dirt above their heads, it appears the road cut was at least ten feet deep.

I believe the photo was taken in the year before their marriage, since Grandpa Ivan is not wearing a wedding ring on his visible left hand. The trees behind them in the Macbeth farmyard still have leaves, so I am guessing the photo was taken in early fall. Grandma Nora is wearing a long-sleeved top and Grandpa is wearing a suitcoat, so the weather was neither hot as it would have been in summer, nor particularly chilly as it would have been in late fall. I am putting a likely date of September 1925 on the photo; about seven months before their wedding. The shadows are sharp, with the sun coming from the west, so the photo was likely taken in late afternoon.

Ivan and Nora were probably engaged by this point, or close to announcing their engagement. Even though they are a bit stiff-looking and aren’t holding hands, they are sitting close to one another, leaning towards each other. I can see from their body language that they are definitely a “couple”.

My grandmother, Nora Hoffman, was twenty-six when they married, while Ivan Macbeth had just turned twenty-two. My grandmother was always sensitive about the age difference, even lying about her own age on occasion. This is the first photo where I can really see how very young Ivan was, and how Nora looks more mature.

I love their clothes. They seem to have been dressed up for a date or a party. Ivan seems to be holding a scarf or soft hat, and Nora holds a lovely hat decorated with a small bunch of flowers. Her hair is bobbed in the flapper-type style of the 1920s. She appears to be wearing pale hose, and has shoes decorated with some sort of buckle. He is wearing a nice suit and dark tie, and has a handkerchief peeking from his suit pocket. He’s wearing dark dress shoes, and the narrow pants legs accentuate his lean, lanky build.

In this photo, my grandparents are preparing to set out on a new road in their life, so it is appropriate that they are posing on the new road being built in front of their soon-to-be home.

Returning to the Scene: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Overlooked”

 

Overlooked Information Provides a Richer Picture of Fourth Great Grandfather

Isaac White: 1742-1819 (Maternal Fourth-Great-Grandfather)

 

I was recently reminded that reviewing records of ancestors that I first researched years ago can provide valuable new information. While looking at a fan chart of one section of my tree, I noticed that I had no mother listed for my fourth great-grandfather, Isaac White. This prompted me to take a fresh look at his profile on my Ancestry tree. While I found two new records that added to my understanding of his life, most of what I discovered had been overlooked on my first pass through the records.

So what did I know about Isaac White? He appears to have been born around 1742, based on records showing his age at different points in his life, and his death record from 1819 which stated he was 77 years old at death. His entire adult life seems to have been spent in West Bagborough, Somerset, England, where he was a farmer. As rural farmers in the 1700s rarely moved any great distance, he probably was born in the same general area.

I had listed his father as William White, born in 1724. I apparently copied this information from other trees on Ancestry without taking the necessary effort to verify this parentage. I should have been a little dubious just from looking at the purported father’s birth date; William would only have been eighteen when Isaac was born. In addition, William White was born in Holborn, London, almost two hundred miles from West Bagborough. Why would he have relocated so far from home? Or why would his son Isaac have done so?

I looked at three other family trees that included birth records for Isaac. All used the same birth record, showing parents William and Ann, from the parish of Frome St. John, Somerset. Frome is forty-five miles from West Bagborough, which was a red flag. However, the bigger problem with that birth record was the date, which all three tree owners (and I) had blithely ignored: July 1754, twelve years after my Isaac’s likely 1742 birth date. The Frome parish record was probably for a completely different Isaac White. I have removed the record from my tree’s profile for Isaac White.

My searches so far have not turned up any likely parents for Isaac, so ironically my attempt to identify Isaac’s mother led to the removal of his father from my tree. My “brick wall” on Isaac’s parentage is now taller than ever.

However, I made two other discoveries that were very interesting. First, when I examined Isaac’s original 1773 marriage record, I noticed that he had signed his own name quite legibly, showing he was literate. However, his spouse, Elizabeth Cox, could only make her mark—a little oval shape. She obviously could neither read nor write.

I also examined a Land Tax Redemption Record from 1798 for West Bagborough. It shows that Isaac White was a tenant farmer – the “occupier” according to the terms of the record – of three parcels of land owned by what looks like “William Yeo”. The Redemption Records were taken nationwide in 1798 to assess a land tax on landowners. The records show the property owners, the names of the occupants/renters of the land, and the tax amounts owed. This is proof that Isaac was farming land in West Bagborough, but did not own his land.

The final discovery was the most interesting, and provides the best—and saddest--glimpse into the lives of these long-dead ancestors. Isaac White died August 15, 1819 at age 77. 

Someone in England uploaded the newspaper report of the inquest into Isaac’s death. The item is printed below:

It sounds as if Isaac was an alcoholic. He got so drunk at age 77 that he passed out in the yard, falling onto his back, and apparently asphyxiated on his own vomit. Since his wife didn’t go looking for him when he didn’t come home, it would appear that she was accustomed to his heading out to drink and not returning home for hours.

My new discoveries about Isaac White showed me the value of reviewing the data in my family tree. New sources may have been added over the years, like the newspaper item on the inquest. But even more importantly, valuable information can so easily have been overlooked in a first pass through records.

Sources:

UK, Land Tax Redemption, 1798 for Isaac White. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2319/records/502617?tid=46986934&pid=322190764690&ssrc=pt

Somerset, England, Marriage Registers, Bonds and Allegations, 1754-1914 for Isaac White. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/60858

Inquest Verdict. Taunton Courier, Taunton, Somerset. Page 7, 26 Aug 1819.  

Revision Time for My First Blog Post: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “In the Beginning”

A Clearer Picture of a Pioneer Female Doctor: Harriet Stemen Macbeth

Harriet Stemen Macbeth: 1873-1939 (Maternal Great-Grandaunt by Marriage)

 

When I look back at my first genealogy blog post, I cringe. My little sketch, only three paragraphs in length, was sadly incomplete and in certain respects was downright erroneous. In January 2019 when I first wrote that post, I was just starting my journey in family history research. My limitations and lack of knowledge back then are now painfully obvious. I feel I did a great disservice to the subject of that first blog post, Dr. Harriet Stemen Macbeth. Now, six years later, it is time to correct my errors and provide a more complete picture of this amazing woman’s life.

Harriet Fontanna Stemen was born February 19, 1873 to Dr. Christian Stemen and his wife Lydia Enslen Stemen. She was the sixth of their seven children. Christian Stemen was a doctor and surgeon who first practiced in Ohio where Harriet was born. Around 1875 he was appointed as a professor of the theory and practice of medicine at the Medical College of Fort Wayne, Indiana, so he moved his family there. He was a man ahead of his time, a proponent of women entering medical practice, and the medical college began to admit female students.

The building that house the Medical College of Fort Wayne when Harriet Stemen was a student

Harriet became one of those medical students in 1893. She completed her studies and began practicing as a physician in 1894. She first worked as an assistant to her father, handling anesthesia during his surgeries.

On July 3, 1900, Harriet married Albert Macbeth, another physician in Fort Wayne. She was 27 years old while he was 38. Albert was ambitious, running the city health department and building a hospital. The couple had no children. Census records show them living together in the 1910 and 1920 censuses. Harriet’s parents often resided with them.

Harriet was involved in the community. She was named “grand Martha” by the Grand Matrons of the Eastern Star in the spring of 1907, a charitable fraternal (or in this instance, sororital) Masonic group. She also served as secretary for the group. Harriet was also active in the local Presbyterian Church. The church listings in the Fort Wayne newspaper for May 8, 1909 show Harriet performing two solos, one at the morning service and one at the evening service. Albert is never mentioned in articles about these community groups; it is unclear if he participated.

Harriet faced difficulties in her life. She was sued in 1914 by an obstetrics patient, Nora Ulery, who claimed that Harriet failed to arrive for three hours after Ulery called to say she was in labor. The child was already born when Harriet arrived, and Ulery claimed the doctor failed to bring necessary equipment to help with post-birth issues, and as a result Ulery needed further surgery. She also claimed that Harriet injected her with an unsanitary needle, leading to an infection and abscess that left Ulery unable to use her arm.

The suit finally went to trial a year later, with a verdict coming down January 15, 1915. The jury did not believe Mrs.Ulery, finding for Harriet. I noticed that Mrs. Ulery was suing two other people around the same time period over different issues—perhaps she was one of those people who like to file nuisance lawsuits.

Harriet was also having marital problems that seems to have led to an eventual divorce. It is unclear when she divorced Albert. On the 1920 census form they were still living together and still listed themselves as married. My mother told me that her parents heard rumors that Albert may have been a womanizer, but she didn’t know any details. I am embarrassed to admit that I failed to catch the divorce when I first wrote about Harriet. I wrote admiringly of their long marriage.

At some point in her medical career, Harriet went into practice with her niece-in-law, Bertha Goba Macbeth, another woman doctor who married Albert Macbeth’s nephew Robert Lyle Macbeth. The two physicians were featured in an article on “Fort Wayne’s Women Medical Pioneers”. The author, Peggy Siegel, wrote:

“As family physicians, Dr. Harriet Stemen Macbeth and her niece, by marriage, Dr. Bertha Goba Macbeth called on patients in their homes, often assisting at childbirth. They referred patients to hospitals only when oxygen was needed. Office hours were for follow up care when patients were well enough to get out.”

By the 1930 census, Harriet was living at 419 Wayne Street in Fort Wayne. While she still told the census taker she was married, she was obviously living separately from Albert. She owned the home and had two female boarders, a nurse and a Dictaphone operator. The house was valued at $20,000, which seems like a good sum for that era. I have found no record of Albert in the 1930 census, so I am unsure where he was living.

It is possible that Albert and Harriet never actually legally divorced, but merely permanently separated. When Albert appears on the 1940 census, he lists himself as a widower (Harriet died the year before), and his 1947 death certificate also lists him as a widower.

Harriet died March 18, 1939 at the age of sixty-six. The only obituaries I have found for her were from Indiana newspapers other than her hometown’s, so they were very brief, noting only that she had practiced medicine in Fort Wayne for 44 years, and had retired from her practice in 1937. I have found no death certificate. The obituaries said she “died…after a long illness.”

 

I am sure the Fort Wayne newspaper carried a more detailed obituary. At some point I hope to be able to find a copy of it. Harriet Stemen Macbeth’s courageous life deserves to be properly remembered.

 

Sources:

Information on Harriet’s medical school training and photo of medical college. By Nyttend - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19364527 https://www.lostcolleges.com/fort-wayne-medical

Church Solo. Fort Wayne News and Sentinel. Fort Wayne, Indiana. May 8, 1909 issue. https://www.newspapers.com/image/29184004/?match=1&terms=harriet%20stemen%20macbeth

“Mrs. Harriet Stemen Macbeth Honored by Grand Matrons.” Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. Fort Wayne, Indiana. Apr 26, 1907 issue. https://www.newspapers.com/image/29251774/?match=1&terms=harriet%20stemen%20macbeth

Fort Wayne’s Women Medical Pioneers by Peggy Siegel.  https://www.in.gov/history/files/Seigel-for-WEB.pdf

Photo of headstone from Findagrave.com. Photo by Barbara Wolf. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/89385484/harriet-macbeth

Obituary. “Fort Wayne Doctor Dies.” The Star Press. Muncie, Indiana. March 19, 1939 issues. https://www.newspapers.com/image/252181103/?article=054b117c-d

52 Ancestors 2024 Final Post of the Year: “Resolution”

 

I am so pleased to have finished another year of 52 Weeks, 52 Ancestors. I managed to write 45 blog posts about some really interesting ancestors.

According to Ancestry, in 2024 I added 993 people to my two big trees on Ancestry. I’m amazed that I had that much growth. I attribute it in part to my growing use of DNA matches to build my tree—I’m adding a lot of collateral ancestors, but they are helping to confirm my connection to my direct ancestors.

Here’s where my trees stand as of New Year’s Day 2024:

Aird Family Tree: 2334 people, and 1201 photos.

Peterson Macbeth Family Tree: 8,759 people and 2785 photos.

And here’s where my genealogy blogs stand:

Twigs on the Family Tree: 214 blog posts.

Another Tree to Climb: Researching the Aird, Sheild, Smiths and Jandeseks: 112 blog posts.

My New Year’s Resolution: I will complete at least 45 of the 2025 blog post prompts, and will continue to build both family trees.

I’m excited to see where I will be at the end of 2025. Happy New Year!