Why Choose Wood? 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “More than a Name”

 

Sometimes Vee, Sometime Oleson, Sometimes Wood: A Confusing Surname Switch

Thore Oleson Vee: 1852-1883 (Paternal First Cousin 2x Removed)
Gro Pedersdatter Hovland Vee: 1865-1932 (Wife of Paternal First Cousin 2x Removed)
Julia Oline Vee: 1882-1980 (Paternal Second Cousin 1x Removed)

 

Norwegian names can be confusing at the best of times, but as I researched my first cousin twice removed, Thore Oleson Vee, I found more than the average amount of confusion. Thore seems to have occasionally used the surname Wood along with Oleson and Vee, and following his death, Thore’s widow uses Wood for her own and her daughter’s surname.

So what do we know about Thore Oleson Vee? He was born in Laerdal, Sogn al Fjordane, Norway on January 6, 1852 to parents Ole Torresson Haavardshaugen and Gjorand Olsdatter Ve.  He was the third of their eleven children. At some point in the 1870s, he emigrated to Minnesota. Some of his siblings also arrived in Minnesota and Wisconsin; it is unclear whether they traveled together, or separately.

Thore settled in Freeborn County, Minnesota. He appears on the 1880 census as a 27-year old working as a farm laborer, living with Anders Erickson and family. I assume he was working for Anders, who interestingly was Swedish, but married to a Norwegian woman. Two other farm laborers, Ole Olsen and John Olsen, were also living with the Ericksons. How did Thore find this position? Did he have family or friend connections to the Olsens, despite their being born in Wisconsin? Was there a connection to Erickson’s wife? Or did he just happen to find the job once he arrived in Minnesota?

1880 Census entry for Thore Vee

Just a year later, Thore married a teenager who had immigrated to Freeborn County with her family a decade earlier. Gro Pedersdatter Hovland was born in 1865 in Norway to parents Peder Thoreson Hovland and Britta Kristoffersdatter Hovland. The family appears on the 1865 Norway census. They must have emigrated just a few years later, as they appear on the 1870 US Census, where they are living with Peder’s brother Haaver Thoreson on his farm in Bancroft Township in Freeborn County. By 1880, Gro’s parents have their own farm in the same township.

Bancroft Township borders the town of Albert Lea, where Thore was living with the Ericksons. That gave Thore and Gro opportunities to meet and to eventually marry on December 26, 1881. Thore was 29 years old, while Gro was just 16. The newspaper notice of their marriage lists Thore’s surname as Ve.

I don’t know where the young couple lived after their marriage. Did Thore acquire his own farm by then? As yet, I have found no records.

Thore and Gro’s first child, daughter Julia, was born February 4, 1882. By this time, Thore was using the surname Wood. The birth record lists the baby as Julia Oline Wood. Their second child, daughter Betsey Petrine, was born April 11, 1883. Her birth record also lists her surname as Wood and her father as Thore Wood.. However, both babies’ baptism records list their surname as Olsen, Thore’s patronymic surname. This shows that amongst the Norwegian community in the area, Thore was still identified by his patronymic (Ole’s son, Oleson) and place name, Vee, even though he was using Wood when interacting with some government entities, like county clerks.

It appears that Thore and Gro were using three surnames during the same time period of 1881-1883: Ve or Vee, Olsen and Wood. Why did they choose Wood as their English-language surname? Some Norwegians simply translated their Norwegian surname into English, but neithter the name Olsen or Vee have meanings in English that are even remotely related to Wood

Tragically, Thore died November 13, 1883. He was only 31 years old. Gro was left a widow at age eighteen. I had difficulty locating his death record until I started searching for him under the name “Thore Wood”. That pulled up the index to his death record in Bancroft Township, Freeborn County. I located the actual entry in the Bancroft Township death records on FamilySearch. It reports that Thore died of consumption (tuberculosis).

Thore's death record

Thore was buried in the Central Freeborn Lutheran Cemetery. His headstone lists his surname as Vee.

To compound Gro’s grief, her baby Betsey died just weeks before her first birthday, on February 20, 1884. Confusingly, Betsey’s death record, entered just four lines below her father’s in the Bancroft Township death ledger, lists her name as Betsy P. Vee. She also died of consumption. I cannot locate her burial place.

Betsey's death record showing a different surname than her father's, just four lines above hers.

So what happened to Gro and young Julia after Thore’s death? A check of the 1885 Minnesota census showed that they were living with Gro’s parents and her uncle Haver, who also lived in Bancroft township. Her parents had ten children still living with them, so the house must have been crammed with people. The census taker just listed Gro and Julia under the surname of Toreson, which the rest of the household was using.

By the 1895 Minnesota State Census, Gro and Julia are living in her uncle Haver Thoreson’s house. She is acting as his housekeeper. She is listed as Mrs. Groe Wood, and Julia is also using the surname Wood.

1895 state census, with Gro and Julia using the Wood surname

In 1900, Gro appears on the census still living with her uncle Hovar Toreson. But now she is using her “location” surname, Hovland, which is the farm her family lived on in Norway. Daughter Julia is also using the surname Hovland on this census.

Gro remarries on June 6, 1908 at age forty-three. She lists her name on the marriage records as Gro Wood. Curiously, her new husband has the surname Wee, which is a different spelling of Thore’s surname Vee. I find no evidence the two men were related, however, which is not surprising as Wee/Vee is a location surname. They were likely from the same area of Norway.

On the 1910 census, Ole and Gro are listed with the surname Wee, while Julia, who is still living with them at age 27, is listed as Julia Wood. However, on the 1920 census, they are all listed with the surname Wee.

News item from the Albert Lea Tribune newspaper on Aug 30, 1910 showing Julia using Wood surname

Daughter Julia preferred the surname Wood on most records, and continued to use it for the remainder of her life until her marriage in 1923 to Herman Shelton. Her marriage record lists Wood as her surname, and her Findagrave entry also shows Wood as her maiden name.

So what can we conclude about Thore Oleson Vee and his many surnames? Like many Norwegian immigrants, Thore saw surnames as flexible. When you moved in Norway, after all, your location surname changed to your new residence’s name. So using different names for different purposes seemed normal to him. But why did he choose to go by the English surname of Wood on occasion? I think he may have been trying to show that he was now an American with an American-sounding name. In this case, Wood was more than a name. It represented his desire to fit in among his new countrymen. His wife seems to have shared that desire.

 

Sources:

1880 Federal Census. Year: 1880; Census Place: Albert Lea, Freeborn, Minnesota; Roll: 620; Page: 83c; Enumeration District: 096Freeborn. Albert Lea. 096.

Thore Wood Death Record. Index to deaths, 1870-1959; birth index, 1870-1921; index to delayed birth records, 1874-1981; birth and death records 1872-1949. Freeborn County, Minnesota. Births, deaths, 1872-1907, Bancroft Township.  FamilySearch. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-95QP-39Q5?wc=36TN-DPX%3A1583719002%2C1583719408%26cc%3D2185953&cc=2185953&lang=en&i=50&groupId=2185953

Freeborn. Death Record Indexes 1870–1959. #004539639. Item 2. FamilySearch. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939Z-YGWF-K?view=index&personArk=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AQPZB-J3CT&action=view&cc=1803974&lang=en&groupId=M9S4-NL6

State Census data: Ancestry.com.

Findagrave Entry for Thore Olsen Vee: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/150001606/theodore-olsen-vee?_gl=1*14ilkyj*_gcl_au*MjQ3MjQ2NzQ0LjE3ODU1OTUzOTc.*_ga*MTcwOTEwOTIzLjE3ODU1OTUzOTg.*_ga_LMK6K2LSJH*czIwZTUyM2YwLTRhZmEtNDBhMC1hYzc3LWQwOTY5N2I3MGJkMCRvNSRnMSR0MTc4NTY4MDg3NyRqNDYkbDAkaDA

Moon Landing and Me: 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “Free Space”

 

Apollo 11 Crew Landed on the Moon on My Birthday

 

This week marks the 57^th anniversary of the first moon landing by the crew of Apollo 11. That was a special day for me, as Neil Armstrong took his “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” on my tenth birthday.

I no longer remember how we celebrated my tenth birthday. I know we had a cake—my mom always baked an angel food cake for our birthdays, and my brother and I got to choose what color to tint the fluffy frosting, and how to decorate the central hole (I usually put a slender glass or small vase into the cake’s center, and put a little bouquet of flowers in it). I have no memory of what presents I received either.

But I do remember watching the moon landing. My mom was a big fan of Walter Cronkite, so we watched CBS’s coverage. I don’t think we had a color TV yet; in my memory, everything was black and white, and the photos from the moon were pretty fuzzy. But I was excited. Even at ten, I understood I was watching something amazing and world-changing.

Buzz Aldrin and the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, July 1969

Later, perhaps at Christmas, I received a bulletin board for my room that had a picture of the moon lander and the date stamped on the cork backing. I used the bulletin board straight through my college years, although most of the time I had so many papers and photos tacked up that the Apollo 11 lander was invisible.

Photo of a bulletin board like mine from an online sale post

The first time I visited NASA in Houston with my children, I proudly showed them the displays on Apollo 11, pointing out my birthdate on the signs. The event remains special to me, and I think about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin every year on my birthday.

Sources:

Photo of Buzz Aldrin and Lunar Lander. Wikimedia Commons. https://images.nasa.gov/details/as11-40-5948 http://dayton.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/LARGE/GPN-2000-001102.jpg on the Wayback Machine at the Wayback Machine http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2000-001102.html on the Wayback Machine at the Wayback Machine

 

Missing Children: 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “A Question the Records Can’t Answer”

 

Census Records Show My Grandmother Gave Birth to Children Not Found in Records

Ragnhild Olsdatter Ve Syverson: 1848-1933 (Paternal Great-Grandmother)
Regina Syverson Peterson: 1872-1952 (Paternal Grandmother)
 

I have been trying to re-examine the 1900 and 1910 censuses for my direct ancestors, paying particular attention to the questions asked of women on how many children they had borne, and how many children survived. Answers to those questions have sometimes surprised me, indicating that certain ancestors had additional children that I had failed to find in the records. In most cases, these mystery children had either died in early childhood or were stillborn.

When I looked at my grandmother Regina Peterson’s and my great-grandmother Ragnhild Syverson’s answers to those questions, I discovered that each woman had lost three children. I was stunned.

I had already identified Ragnhild’s three lost children. One child, Anne Sirine Syverson, died at age nineteen, so I had been able to find her on the 1880 and 1890 censuses, and had found her death record. Ragnhild had also lost two young sons, Syver and Ole. I found Syver, born in 1869, on the Minnesota State Census in 1875. He died the next year at age seven. His little brother Ole was born in 1873 and died in 1874. I was able to find his birth record and his cemetery record. Sadly, while all three of Ragnhild’s lost children were buried in the Linden Lutheran Cemetery in Linden Township, there are no grave markers for them. I expect Ove and Ragnhild couldn’t afford a headstone so probably used wooden markers that decayed and disappeared.

Ragnhild's answer to 1900 Census question

Regina was one of Ragnhild’s surviving five children. She married my grandfather Paul Peterson in 1892 when she was twenty years old. As far as I knew, Regina had given birth to ten children. I knew that one child, Oscar, died in infancy in 1898. I had a birth record for him, but no death or burial record to confirm the date of his death.

Regina's wedding photo--1892

But Regina’s answer to the 1900 census question indicated that she had borne five children, but only two—Anna and Randine—survived at that time. So Oscar was not the only child that Regina and Paul’s had lost. The 1910 census confirmed that three children had died. Regina reported in 1910 that she had given birth to nine children, and had only six who survived. 

Regina's 1900 census entry

I had noticed that Regina and Paul’s oldest child, Anna, was born in July of 1895, a full three years and one month after Paul and Regina’s marriage. I suspect they had two births in those three years that ended in tragedy. Family Search actually flagged that three-year gap, suggesting there might have been another birth during that gap. However, I have found no records for those children after searching both Ancestry and FamilySearch. I also found no burial records for these lost infants.

Regina's 1910 census entry, confirming the loss of three children.

The records apparently can’t tell me anything about these two lost children other than the fact that Regina gave birth to them and they died. I can find no names, birth or death records, no sign of how long they lived, and no record of what happened to their bodies.

Beyond these gaps in factual information are additional and even more important things that the records cannot tell me—how painful the loss of three children must have been for my grandmother and for my great-grandmother. How did they manage to go on? Did each subsequent birth leave Regina anxious that she would lose yet one more precious life? Did she panic at each sign of illness in her babies? Did she wake at night to listen for the sounds of their breathing? Did the losses change Regina in significant ways?

No record can ever answer these questions. I can only imagine her pain, and wonder if I should enter these mystery babies in my tree, or to let them fade away.

Sources:

Year: 1900; Census Place: Lake Hanska, Brown, Minnesota; Roll: 758; Page: 8; Enumeration District: 0038. Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.

Year: 1910; Census Place: Lake Hanska, Brown, Minnesota; Roll: T624_691; Page: 4b; Enumeration District: 0041; FHL microfilm: 1374704. Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.

Remembering a Civil War Vet on Memorial Day: 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “A Moment of Courage”

 

Alden Orren Dane: Wounded While Fighting with the Vermont 10^th Infantry

Alden Orren Dane: 1844-1923 (Maternal First Cousin 4x Removed)

 

Today is Memorial Day, a holiday that was created to honor the Civil War dead. Therefore, it seemed fitting to write about my first cousin four times removed, Alden Orren Dane, who bravely fought with Company K of the Vermont 10^th Infantry. He was wounded in battle on November 27, 1863. Fortunately, he survived and returned home to build a life.

Alden Dane was born August 18, 1844 in Derby, Vermont to parents Joseph Dane and Jane Wheeler Dane. Joseph was the son of my fourth great-grandfather, Francis Dane, and the brother of my third great-grandfather David Dane.

At the age of 18, Alden enlisted in the Union Army on July 21, 1862, a year after the start of the war. He served as a private in a Vermont infantry unit, so was probably serving with people from his hometown and surrounding areas.

Some of his fellow Vermont 10^th soldiers kept journals and wrote letters home that describe what life was like for Alden. Writing from Culpepper, Virginia in November 1863, Herbert George told his family:

 … While we are in camp I feel just as well contented as I ever did at home but when we are on the march and I get awful tired and can’t stop to rest I feel a little ugly. Some times we are not allowed to get anything to eat in all day and then have to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning and get our breakfast in the dark. Then is the time when a soldier will curse the rebellion.

…If I should be lucky enough to get a furlough next winter should want to go home with decent clothes on, don’t want to wear any home out of the field for they will be lousey. The ground here is covered with old clothes & lice & no man can keep them off only by picking them off when they bite. If we take off any of our clothing nights we have to hitch them to a steak or they will crawl off where we can’t find them. We can drive a pair of pants or a shirt anywhere with a little patience…

Battle of Mine Run--Illustration used in Harper's Weekly during war

 “When we fill up our haversacks we have to be careful to put the string over a stump or something to keep them [worms] from running away haversack and all Ahem!…”

Alden probably shared Herbert George’s frustrations as the war dragged on.

On November 27, 1863, General Meade ordered the Union forces to attack Lee’s Confederate forces in the Mine Run Campaign. The Union underestimated the size of the Confederate army they faced, and suffered losses. The 10^th Vermont, part of General Joseph Carr’s division, was sent to support General Prince’s left flank. A soldier in the 10^th Vermont recalled the fight as “a deluge of lead and iron that swept over us.  The musketry was not in the least of a jerky or intermittent sort, but one continuous roll.”

According to a website on the Mine Run Campaign, “Carr’s men, though inexperienced, performed admirably, and became veterans that afternoon. Their arrival stabilized the Union line, which was then in danger of collapsing under pressure from the ever-aggressive Johnson…. Col. Charles T. Collis of the 114th Pennsylvania judged it “one of the sharpest and best fought affairs of the war. The musketry was the most terrific any of us had ever heard, and the chances of getting off without a decent wound was about as poor as it possibly could have been.”

Drawing of Mine Run battle--Library of Congress

The Union suffered 1400 casualties in the battle, and one of them was Alden Dane. His injury was apparently not severe enough for him to be sent home. He must have been sent to the rear to receive treatment and recover, for he continued to serve in the war until he was mustered out on June 22, 1865, a month after the war had ended. His unit participated in several important battles and campaigns later in the war, including Spottsylvania Courthouse, and the siege and capture of Petersburg, Virginia. The unit was near Appomattox Court House when Lee surrendered to Grant. The unit lost 149 officers and soldiers in battle, and another 203 to disease. Alden Dane was fortunate to have survived.

Alden returned home, and eventually moved to Massachusetts. He married Martha Saloma Bliss, another Vermont native who moved to Massachusetts, on January 21, 1868. They settled in Billerica, Massachusetts, and appear on the 1880 census. Alden was working as a “Superintendant of Farm”. The couple had no children, and Martha died November 15, 1893 at age 53.

Marriage Record

Alden remarried to a younger woman named Lucy Parker. Tragically, she died of complications from childbirth on February 16, 1899, just two days after Alden and Lucy’s baby son Arthur died of a heart defect on Valentine’s Day, 1899.

Death record of wife and son.

Alden did not marry again. He continued to live in the Billerica area, boarding with other families. By the 1900 census, he was working for the railroad, and the 1910 census shows him 65 years old, working as a livestock dealer.

On February 24, 1882, Alden had filed for a military pension as an invalid. He received a pension and is listed on an 1890 Veterans Schedule, which noted that he had been wounded in the left ankle during the war, and in 1890 suffered from chronic diarrhea, a diseased lung and “rheumatics”. Without access to his full pension file, I am not sure how much he was receiving as a pensioner.

Alden was active in his community, serving in the local GAR chapter, the Masons, and the Odd Fellows.

Alden should be remembered for his service to our country in the Union Army. He suffered a wound in battle, but still returned to duty following his recovery. His determination to continue serving his country after he was injured demonstrated his courage and the courage of his fellow soldiers.

 

Sources:

Bully for the Band: The Civil War Letters and Diary of Four Brothers in the 10th Vermont Infantry Band. Davis, James A. ed. McFarland and Company. 2012.

Union Vermont Volunteers. https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UVT0010RI

Alden O Dane, Billerica, Dies. Boston Evening Globe. Boston MA. 28 September 1923.

Marriage, Birth and Death Records. Vermont and Massachusetts. Ancestry.com.

A Name that Looks Back 200 Years: 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “A Name with Meaning”

 

Francis Ami Dane: Named in Honor of His Ancestor Born Two Centuries Before

Francis Ami Dane: 1817-1892 (Maternal 2^nd Great-Granduncle)
Francis Dane: 1615-1697 (Maternal Eighth Great-Grandfather)
AmmiRuhammah Faulkner: 1692-1756 (Maternal First Cousin 8x Removed and Francis Dane’s Grandson)
 

When I first entered Francis Ami Dane into my family tree, I was struck by his name. The name “Francis Dane” had appeared repeatedly in my family tree for two centuries and across six generations before Francis Ami Dane’s birth in 1817. Francis’ middle name, Ami, also echoed a name that first appeared in the Dane line five generations earlier. Francis Ami Dane was proof that the Dane family took great pride in their history and in the first members of the family to arrive in the American colonies.

My eighth great-grandfather, Rev. Francis Dane, arrived in the Massachusetts Colony in the 1630s, and became the minister of Andover, Massachusetts in 1648. I have written other posts about his efforts to stop the Salem Witch Trials and his commonplace book which has survived nearly four centuries and is now digitized and available online. He was a leader in his community of Andover. He had many descendants.

His daughter, Abigail Dane Faulkner, was arrested during the witch trials in retaliation for her father’s opposition. She was convicted and sentenced to death, but was spared immediate execution because she was pregnant. By the time her son was born in 1692, the witch hysteria was over and she was freed from prison. She named her son AmmiRuhammah Faulkner. Ammi Ruhammah is a Hebrew term found in the book of  Hosea which translates to “ beloved people”. The name was probably intended to exhibit Abigail and Francis Faulkner’s relief and gratitude to God that this child had saved her life. The name AmmiRuhamah appears in the Faulkner line for several generations.

It appears that Francis Ami Dane’s parents, David Dane and Sally Randall Dane, were familiar with the Dane family history and chose to honor it when Francis Ami was born. They were also apparently religious, as two other sons were named Moses and Israel.

While Francis Ami Dane had seven children with his wife Sarah Terwilliger, he did not give any of his sons the name Francis Ami. One son was named Frank Siegal Dane. Perhaps Frank was a nod to the name Francis. Francis seems to have gone by Frank for much of his life.

Francis Ami Dane grew up in Genesee, New York and moved to Wisconsin at some point in the 1840s. He married Sarah Terwilliger in Janesville in 1846, and they moved to Lewiston, Columbia County, Wisconsin. He was a farmer.

Francis died in Columbia County, Wisconsin on New Year’s Eve 1892 at the age of 75.  I wonder if Francis Ami Dane ever really understood the significance of his name, and how it honored his ancestors. Did he pass on his family’s history to his own children, or did it die with his father, David? I will never know.

Sources:

The Founding of Harvard College. Morison, Samuel Eliot. 1935. Harvard University Press. Page 374.

Obituary of Sarah Dane. Portage Daily Democrat. Portage Wisconsin. May 7, 1895. Newspapers.com.

Decoration Day’s Importance in Our Family: 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “Tradition”

 

Bringing Flowers to the Graves: Grandma Macbeth Carried on a Tradition

Nora Elsie Hoffman Macbeth: 1899-1994

 

This week’s prompt, Tradition, had me struggling. I had written about our family’s primary traditions in previous years’ posts. Then I glanced at the calendar and noticed that Memorial Day was just a few weeks away, and that made me recall my grandmother’s tradition of decorating the family graves on “Decoration Day”, the original name for Memorial Day.

Americans began observing Memorial Day after the Civil War as a way to honor fallen soldiers on both sides of the war. They decorated the graves with flowers. The first national proclamation of the Memorial Day Order was issued by the Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, General John A. Logan, on May 5,1868. It read in part:

“The 30th day of May, 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

My grandfather’s maternal grandfather, Jerome Dane, had served in the Civil War, and had been active in local GAR chapters, so following his death, his children and grandchildren honored his grave each Memorial Day. Grandpa Macbeth probably made many trips to Tivoli Cemetery over the years, and my mother remembered visiting Great-Grandpa Dane’s headstone as a child.

Captain Jerome Dane, Union Army, Civil War Photo 

As the years passed, the holiday grew to honor the graves of all individuals who had served in the military, not just Civil War soldiers. Family members served in WWI and WWII, so their graves were honored as well. Below is a photo of my granduncle Harold Macbeth who served as an Army private in World War I.

Harold Macbeth, World War I, taken in 1918.

My grandmother and her sisters eventually expanded their Memorial Day observances to include non-military family members. They used the day to travel to the local cemeteries to leave flowers on the graves of their parents and other important family members. Grandma often used her own garden flowers for her grave tributes—I remember that peonies from the bushes at the bottom of the hill were some of her favorites if they bloomed early enough. She also bought artificial flowers or arrangements and left those instead of live flowers.

I have fond memories of running around the cemetery while my parents and grandparents placed their floral offerings. I remember the graves of soldiers having tiny flags on them—probably the work of a Boy Scout Troop or the local VFW chapter.

While this may not have been the most significant of my family's traditions, it still brings back sweet memories for me. I have been unable to continue this tradition since I no longer live near my ancestors’ graves. But I try to travel to a family cemetery whenever I visit Minnesota, as seen in the photo above. This year, I will be honoring my ancestors’ memories from afar.

Sources:

National Cemetery Administration, Memorial Day History. https://www.cem.va.gov/history/Memorial-Day-history.asp

Family photos.

Loosening the Mortar in My Hanover, Germany Brick Wall: 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “A Brick Wall Revisited”

Possible Parents for Maria Christina Uepkendanz

Maria Christina Uepkendanz: 1806-1850 (Maternal Third Great-Grandmother)

 

When I first started researching my Hoffman line several years ago, I hit a brick wall at my third-great-grandmother, Maria Christina Uepkendanz. I had very minimal, poorly sourced information that indicated she was born on October 24, 1806 in Hanover, Germany, but there was no information on her parents. I didn’t even have proof of her birthdate—I had copied the birthdate information from other Ancestry trees. When I saw Amy Johnson Crow’s prompt for this week, A Brick Wall Revisited, I decided it was time to revisit Maria, and see if I could loosen some of the mortar in that brick wall.

All I really knew about Maria was that she was married to my third-great-grandfather, Friedrich Behrend Heinrich Christoph Hoffman around 1830 in Hanover, Germany. Their children were born in Oedelum, a village in Hanover. Maria purportedly died in Oedelum in 1850.

Aerial view of Oedelum, Hanover, Germany today.

I was excited when I saw that Ancestry had “Potential Father” and “Potential Mother” listed for Maria. But when I realized there was only one new “Hint” for her, and that hint was merely a link to someone else’s tree, I could feel the brick wall re-hardening.

I examined the three Ancestry trees that contained Maria and her purported parents, Johann Heinrich Christoph Uepkendanz and Catharina Sophie Dorothea Baarman. The only citations on any of the three trees for Maria’s parentage were each other. Who came up with these parents originally and where did they get the information?

I decided to check FamilySearch. It too lacked any verifiable information on Maria’s parents. The entry for Catharina Sophie Dorothea Baarman gave a source for her birth from a researcher going by the name “aosmith2”. The “record” said her birth date was December 8, 1779 and she was born in Germany. The source was listed as “Legacy NFS Source”. According to AI, “A legacy NFS source is informational data on FamilySearch that was transferred from the "New FamilySearch" (NFS) system to the current Family Tree when it went live around 2012. These are essentially inherited text notes—including old censuses, birth records, or user-submitted research—that often lack direct digital documentation, serving more as clues to be verified.”

That was not helpful. It basically means someone may have found a non-digitized source years ago, but didn’t bother to copy or transcribe it or tell where they found it.

The record for Maria’s father also reference a “legacy NFS Source”, so I have no actual records to evaluate.

I tried using whole text search on FamilySearch, but, given the number of potential variations of the spelling of even the surname Uepkendanz, not to mention the first and double middle names, it is probably unsurprising that I met with no success.

I next tried the FamilySearch Card Catalog for Hanover, Germany, but the only potential resources are not accessible from home.

I had slightly more luck with individual genealogies posted on FamilySearch. I cannot view their sources, only the actual trees. Two trees contain the following parentage information:

This corresponds to what other Ancestry trees indicate, although on Ancestry the other two potential grandparents are also listed, once again without any records as sources.

In summary, I have very, very slightly loosened the mortar in my Maria Uepkendanz brick wall. I now have the names of potential parents and potential grandparents for her. Sadly, the names are all I have been able to locate at this point. In addition, my birthdate, death date, and locations of birth and death also lack appropriate verification, and I have found no marriage record for Maria and her husband Friedrich Hoffman. I suspect that I need some professional help to search German genealogical materials to find any actual records that would confirm her parentage, birth and death.

Sources:

"Pedigree Resource File," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:W3MF-MQT : accessed 23 April 2026), entry for Johann Heinrich Christoph Uepkendanz; "manning family tree" file (2:2:2:MMK2-5WY), submitted 8 November 2025 by LisaOslund [identity withheld for privacy].