52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Weeks 51 and 52 Prompt - In Summary / Resolutions

2024

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 51 & 52

Prompt – In Summary / Resolution

Saddest Discovery: Week 43 – Lost Contact.

Where I find the obituary for my Aunt Phyllis whom I had suspected was dead due to her age. In the obituary I find out that her eldest daughter, my cousin, had predeceased her. I had not expected that.

New Information: Week 47 – Discovery

Through the obituary of my maternal great-grandmother Marie Krikau's (Kraft) second husband I find the answer to why she died in Nebraska but was buried in Chicago.

Funniest Blog: Week 27 – Planes

I tell the story of my maternal grandmother and how she took a loaded gun on plain in her purse.

Most Poignant: Week 19 – Taking Care of Business

In the light of moving Bill's mother to a Level 2 Nursing Home I look back at her life and see how with each move her world does get smaller.

Newsworthy: Week 39 – In The Newspaper & Week 29 – Trains

I found out details in the local newspapers that Bill's family was not aware of. The death of Bill's cousin motorcycle accident was laid out in detail. And the specifics of how Bill's namesake (Uncle Bill) lost his leg due to a train accident.

New To Me: Week 3 – Favourite Photograph.

While researching some of my nieces and nephews earlier this year I found a photograph in their Facebook Photograph Page that I had never seen before. It was my dad's (Jake Peters) Army ID including his fingerprint. Also a photograph of his dog tags. Just when I think there is nothing new to me, something turns up. And I love finding new never seen photographs of family or never heard of stories.

RESOLUTIONS

I have said this many times. I do not make New Year's Resolutions because I have a bad habit of breaking them within the first week.

However I would like to taken on some genealogy projects.

1. Continue to figure out what the heck my DNA will tell me. I have alluded to it twice in the past year but that has been the extent of it.
   

2. I will continue to fill out the details of my family tree in my Legacy program. It never seems to be done. There is always something else to find or fill in because I have the information but have not entered it yet.

3. I've mentioned this before but I would love to take my grandmother's old documents and have them restored and preserved. They are 100 plus years old and I have them rolled up in a paper towel tube in a box. Not good.

4. I feel I must start thinking of my genealogy's legacy. Who will want to take my “genealogy stuff" when I am done with it.

5. I am again not sure I will continue my blogs. I think I say this every year. They are work but really it is work that I love doing. Maybe I can give myself permission to post fewer blogs.

Wendy

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 50 Prompt - Christmas Cards

 2024

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 50 

Prompt - Christmas Cards

Bill's grandmother, Ida Jahnke (nee: Bachmann) kept a photo album type book for her postcards that she received in her younger years. Circa 1910 - 1920. These postcards are Christmas, Easter, Valentines, New Years and Birthday. I scanned them some years ago. The photos do not do them justice. Their colours are still vibrant after 100 plus years and some embossed.  I wish to share some of the Christmas postcards she had saved. 

 

To Ida from her aunt and uncle who lived in Arrow Park, B.C. Of course it is written in German Script.

Circa 1914

 

 

A Christmas Card From Her Cousin; Lydia Fesser.

Merry Christmas Card to August Bachmann (Ida's Father) Again written in German Script.

Wendy

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 49 Prompt - Handed Down

2024

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 49

Prompt – Handed Down

First a genetic lesson on DNA according to Ancestry.

DNA and Chromosomes

DNA is the “instructional manual” for all living things. It is separated into long, tightly wound pieces called chromosomes. People in general have 46 chromosomes, grouped into 23 pairs.

All About Genes

Genes are pieces of DNA within each chromosome that have the instruction for many of your traits, from eye colour to uni brow. You have two copies of each gene, one inherited from each parent. Specific places in your DNA are called markers.

Your Genotype: It's in the DNA

Scientists have found that some markers are associated with specific traits, such as red hair. At a certain marker, your genotype (a combination of two letters like AA) is what helps us determine whether you are going to have red hair or not.

Your Phenotype: genes plus environment

Your phenotype is what your genes say, your phenotype is actually what you have. Sometimes what you see in the mirror is different from your genotype based trait results, because traits are often influenced by many genes. Other factors, like the environment, can also come into play.

Passing It On

Everyone inherits half of their DNA from one parent and the other half from the other. That's why traits tend to run in families – you got half your DNA from each of your parents, who got half of their DNA from their parents, and so on. But the particular mix of DNA you get is unique to you.

My Ancestry DNA provides me with matches in my tree as well as tracing my ancestral regions that they have originated from. As I have mentioned before I am 63% Germanic European. Lately I have been looking through some of the 81 traits that they have listed for me based on my DNA results - the DNA that was passed down to me from my parents.  It is very interesting.

The first personality trait I looked at was “Dancing”. “Wendy, your DNA suggests you don't like dancing.” Bingo. I have two left feet. I really didn't learn to dance and it is my very least favorite activity. Even though both parents contribute DNA traits, Ancestry can figure out which parent had more influence. In this case they attributed the traits to my paternal side. 

 

The second personality trait I looked into was “Caffeine Intake”. It stated that I am likely to drink a lot less caffeine then average. Nope, not true. I usually drink 4 or 5 cups of coffee each day. It also attributed this trait as coming from my paternal side. It seems to me that my dad only drank coffee. A pot or two was his norm. Even on hot summer days he would have his coffee. He thought drinking hot drinks on hot summer days made one feel cooler. Who knows?  

 

 

The third personality trait I looked at was “Hangriness”. Ancestry says this; “hangry” (a combination of hungry + angry) entered mainstream use in the 2010s, but it actually dates back to 1956.

It said “Wendy, your DNA suggests you don't get hangry.” Bill will vehemently disagree with this. I concur too. I am a mean person just before lunch or supper when my blood sugar is low. This trait has been attributed to me along my maternal lines. Like Ancestry, I believe that hangriness is biological. We get our glucose from the food we eat so that we can produce energy to go about our tasks. When the fuel tank runs low we take on the symptoms of irritability, difficulty concentrating and hunger. 

 

This is just 3 of the 81 traits they have figured out from my DNA results. Interesting indeed!

Wendy

 

 

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 48 Prompt - Nostalgia

 2024

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 48

Prompt - Nostalgia  

Christmas is nostalgic for me. I love Christmas especially when young children are part of it.  I was one of those people that produced a yearly Christmas Newsletter (since 1992).  I haven't really written one  in the past few years.  Sending Christmas cards is a vanishing tradition.  Too bad.  I have kept everyone since I first wrote them.  I have them organized in a binder by year.  It is really helpful for some of my genealogy research. I decided to reprint my Christmas letter from December 1994. That was 30 years ago. Enjoy a look back in The Hoffart's life from 3 decades ago.  

December 1994 - Jackie, Wendy, Jill, Jasmine (German Exchange Student) and Bill

 - The Hoffarts

        Wendy
 

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 47 Prompt - Discovery

2024

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 47

Prompt - Discovery

Andreas and Maria Krikau

My maternal great-grandmother is Maria Katherine Kraft. She was born August 27, 1879 in Warenburg, Russia. She married Andreas Krikau on June 15, 1898 in Warenburg, Russia. They and their family immigrated to Canada in the fall of 1911. They came through New York and then by passenger train to Saskatchewan and joined Andreas Krikau's cousin in Rosthern, Saskatchewan. By 1913 Andreas and his family moved on to Winnipeg, Manitoba and by 1924 they immigrated to The United States.

When I first started this genealogy I went through my mother's photo album and came across this newspaper obituary.

I ignored it at first sighting. This person died in Nebraska. As far as I knew my great-grandmother had lived most of her life in Chicago. I did not know who this was and did not think that it was my great-grandmother. This assumption is not hard to believe because so many ancestors inherit the same name as their mother, grandmother, aunt, cousin etc. I thought that it was perhaps a distant cousin of my great-grandmother. As I was soon to figure out, my great-grandmother had married a second time. It was to someone called Philipp Hartwig and he lived in Scotsbluff, Nebraska.

Maria's first spouse, Andreas Krikau died December 29, 1946 in Riverdale, Illinois. Riverdale is a suburb of Chicago. Andreas and Maria were both 67 years old and married approximately 48 years.

I next decided to start looking into Maria Krikau's second marriage. I was intrigued that she married someone from Nebraska. How did she know this person? I did not know when she married him. Why did she die in Nebraska but was buried in the same cemetery as her first husband in Illinois?

My great-grandmother's obituary stated that her husband, Phillip Hartwig outlived her. I started to research Philipp Hartwig. I came across his obituary. 

 

 

Mary Katherine (Trippel) and Phillip Hartwig

I started to put together some pieces of my puzzle. He was born in “Verndurg” Russia on October 6 1876. I did not recognize the city name from Russia. He was born around the same time of my great-grandmother. Eventually and through other sources I found out that he was born in Warenburg. The obituary stated he married his “first wife” , Mary Katherine Tripple in Russia in 1899. They immigrated to Lincoln, Nebraska in 1901 and eventually settled in Scottsbluff, Nebraska in 1911. The name of Tripple sounded familiar to me. In the 1913 failed U.S. Border crossing of Andreas and Maria and family had listed the closest living relative was a sister of Andreas named Barbara Trippel. Andreas did have a sibling named Elisabeth Barbara. I had no further information on her other than she existed. Possibly she could have married a Tripple.

Going on from the Philipp Hartwig's obituary I found out that his first wife, Mary Katherine died September 20, 1950. 

 

I tried to do more research on Mary Katherine Hartwig (Tripple) but soon found out that my great-grandmother's name was so similar, Marie Katherine Hartwig (Kraft). Let me say I spent days collecting and sorting and re-sorting out sources where I had mixed them up between the two. It was a nightmare.

Philipp Hartwig married my great-grandmother sometime in 1951 and she died July 25, 1953 Her second husband outlived her. 

Marie Krikau (Kraft) and Phillip Hartwig. Circa Jul 1953.

 It is my belief that my great-grandmother, Maria Krikau (Kraft) remarried to Philipp Hartwig because of family connections. Maria's sister-in-law was Barbara Tripple (Andreas' sister) and when Mary Hartwig / Tripple died a connection was forged between Maria Krikau (Kraft) and Philipp Hartwig. They were about the same age and were born in the same village in Russia. Hartwig / Tripple married 1899 where Krikau / Kraft married in 1898, both in the same village. Maybe the two married couples knew each other from “the old world”. Also their spouses both died within a few years of each other.

My great-grandmother died in Scottsbluff but was buried close to her first husband in Illinois just as Phillip Hartwig was buried next to his first wife, Mary Katherine Hartwig (Tripple) in Nebraska. I guess that makes sense.

Facts that run amok.

My great-grandmother's name is Maria Katherine Kraft. She often went by Mary. The first wife was known as Marie Katherine Trippel, but often went by Katie. Note also the maiden name is found both as Tripple and Trippel.

Mr. Hartwig is known most by the name Philip Hartwig. But on several family trees he is listed as Johann Phillip Hartwig. His gravestone lists his name as Philipp Hartwig. Note the one “L” and two “P”s.

The city of Scottsbluff, Nebraska is often written as Scotts Bluff, Nebraska. 

In the obituary of Maria Krikau / Hartwig it states that she is survived by two sisters, Mrs. Mary McLaughlin and Mrs Elisa Tanis.  These are in fact her daughters. 

So many details that can lead one away from true sources of their family tree. 

I hope this is not too confusing. I am still working on these families to see if any other discoveries come forward to show more of their story. 

Wendy

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 46 Prompt - Progenitor

2024

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 47

Prompt – Progenitor

“Ancestors refer to those who came before you in your family tree. Progenitor refers to the originator or initial founder of something or the direct ancestor of a person.”

I consider my family tree progenitor Aron Peters (1746-1802). This is as far back as I can go in the Peters line.

Aron Peters was born in 1746 in Pietzckendorf, Pomerania, Prussia. He died January 1, 1802 in a founding Mennonite Colony in Southern Russia known as Schoenhorst, Chortitza Colony. The name of his first wife is unknown but did have two children with her; Elizabeth (1768) and Helena (1774) and both born in Prussia. Aron Peters married his second wife, Helena Krahn on September 1, 1780. They had 7 children.

Aron Peters and his family were among the first 6 families that left Prussia for Southern Russia. They settled in Schoenhorst, Chortitza in 1789. By 1797 about 500 more families moved from Prussia to Southern Russia.

Then between 1874 – 1880 tens of thousand Mennonites immigrated to Canada and in particular to Manitoba. Over the next 20 years many left Manitoba colonies for Hague, Saskatchewan or Swift Current, Saskatchewan. In the 1920's their was a further immigration to Mexico. Swift Current Colonists went to Cueuhetomoc, Chihuahua, Mexico and the Hague Colonies went to Nuevo Ideal, Durango, Mexico.

My father was from the Hague area colony but his family was one of many that did not go to Mexico and stayed in Hague, Saskatchewan. 

 

Wendy