52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 7 Prompt - Unusual Source

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 7

Prompt – Unusual Source

Most family trees try to put BMD (birth-marriage-death) events in place for each of their ancestors. These basic events outline our ancestor.  We want this framework to be correct and true.  The place and date also help prove that we have the right name.  This is particularly important when naming convention hands down the same name down through the generations.  For example in my tree I have 4 generations of David Peters (with no middle name) ranging from 1835 to 1985.

Sources are the evidence that proves our events.  In an ideal world a source would be original.  An original source means that the source was made at or close to the time of the event and recorded by a witness or participant.  Examples might be birth registration or baptismal certificate, death certificate etc.  Things like family stories, other people's family trees and oral histories are considered non original.  They are called derivative sources. I use both types of sources.

Some of the original records that I can look up on the internet are time dependent.  In Canada you can only view birth records that occurred more than 100 years ago; death records if they are older than 70 years and marriages more than 75 years ago.  Another words a generation or two of ancestors have to have passed before we can access their information.  And further new privacy laws are threatening these records completely.

Lately I have been trying to update and source my living immediate family.  It was surprising to me how little I knew.  In particular of the in-laws, nieces and nephews.  I barely remember their full names much less their birth dates.  What to do?   I could write them and ask for the information, but what fun is that?

This is when I thought of a source that I have that is, in my opinion, rather unusual. The annual Christmas letters!  Since their inception and up to recent years, I have kept all the letters.  I have gathered them and put them into page protectors and organized them into a binder according to the families that sent them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It is a treasure trove of information.   Who knew that one day my incessant saving of seemingly trivial things would be a help for me and my genealogy. The letters are fun to read and they give a snapshot of a year in their life.  I have used them to find out dates of certain family events such as baptisms, confirmations, graduations and house moves.  Also some of the letters are from family who are no longer living which makes them very special to me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am not sure whether this source is original or derivative and it really doesn't matter. They are unique and a wonderful source of family information.

Wendy

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 6 Prompt - Valentine

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 6

Prompt – Valentine

I remember Valentine's Day in my grade school.   We made special decorated boxes to receive our classmate's valentines.  It was fun.  Fast forward to Valentine's Day of my children.   We would buy a box of valentines and then sit down with my children and their class list provided by the teacher. At that time you had to give everyone in their class a valentine because no child could be left without them. The teacher really wanted them to be filled in by the students as a practice writing exercise.   It was painful to sit with my children who were in kindergarten and grade 2 and help them address their valentines.  There was so much whining and they wanted to do anything but this.  And being the good mother I was, we left it to the night before it needed to be done.  Not so much fun.

Many years later it is just a fond memory.

Bill's maternal grandmother, Ida Jahnke; nee Bachmann had a postcard collection from her teen years.   I figure that must be about 1912 based on the fact that most of her other dated postcards are from that time.  These postcards are beautiful.  I found one Valentine postcard among her collection.   I would love to figure out who it was from and what it said.  However it was written in German.  Not only German but what I figure is the Old Script German writing, called Suterlin writing.  There are very few people still alive who can translate this writing. (Hitler banned this writing in 1941 in Germany).  I do make out that it was addressed to Ida Bachmann.  The content of the note and who gave her the Valentine is undecipherable.  It would be so cool to get it translated, but for now I enjoy making up all the scenarios that could be written to Ida Bachmann by her Valentine.

 

 

Wendy

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 5 Prompt - In The Kitchen

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 5

Prompt – In The Kitchen

I have a recollection of a special soup that Grandmother Elisabeth Peters served or maybe it was her daughters Mary or Katie that served it.  I don't believe that our mother ever made it in our home; none the less it was a special treat for dad.  My sister, Betty remembers it fondly too.   I have this vague recollection that I tried it once as a young girl while visiting some relative.  It did not appeal to me at all.  It was a cold fruit soup and they called it Pluma Moos or maybe Plumi Moos.

I looked on line for a recipe. I found a blog called “Mennonite Girls Can Cook”. It's opening statement says this: “Mennonite Girls Can Cook is a collection of recipes which were posted daily for a period of ten years from 2008 to 2018. We have over 3,000 delicious recipes that we invite you to try.“

Their recipes were divine to read through.  Who would have thought about butter tart doughnuts?   They did have recipes for Plumi Moos which I will include here.  Again they are from their blog and not my recipes.  If one day you are standing in your kitchen trying to decide what to make, maybe this recipe will come to mind.  And if you make it please think of The Mennonite side of my father's family.

 

 

 

 

 

Wendy

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 4 Prompt -- Memories

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 4

Prompt – Memories

A few years ago I gathered my memories of my maternal grandmother, Elisabeth Dyck.  In part I had decided to write a cousin in Saskatoon to tell her what I remembered about my grandmother; her great-grandmother.  Like so many memories from a long long time ago, I discovered that they were quite faded.  I asked some of my siblings about her.  I got the most information from my oldest sibling, Betty.  She was a young teenager when grandma and grandpa Peters lived in Saskatoon and the family would visit them.

Betty remembers visiting them quite often when Grandma and Grandpa lived on Avenue C in Saskatoon.  Betty's memories of their rented home were quite vivid.  She remembers it looking quite run down.  Our grandparents lived on the top floor of a two story home and you had to get to them by way of an outdoor staircase which Betty termed a “rattletrap”.   Betty said grandma and grandpa Peters were very poor and on welfare.  And apparently this was due, in part anyway, to The Hague Mennonite Colony and their fallen out which resulted in a colony split in half with one half going to Mexico taking all of the colony's money.  There is a grain of truth in this in that some of the colony did leave for Mexico.  They wanted to live in their old ways.  The government of Saskatchewan passed an act that all the colony children need to go to an approved public school taught by a qualified teacher and in English.  This was the exact opposite promised to them prior to their immigration to Canada.   However the money issue is something I have yet to discover as truth. It was costly for the Mennonites to go to Mexico via train.  Who knows how the communal property and monies were divided up when the colony split.   None the less my grandmother and grandfather were very poor.  I believe they left the colony around 1929.  Grandpa Peters Obituary of 1952 stated he was a resident of Saskatoon for 23 years. 

 Betty also thought that Frank and Elisabeth Peters' daughters; Mary and Katie (aka Shirley) lived with there spouses in Saskatoon at this time.  Betty remembers visiting them often and especially during the time that dad was away at war.  Mary's children, Alice and Ruby were about Betty's age and she remembers having a great time socializing with her cousins while the adults visited and spoke only in German.

Betty said that grandfather Peters loved sunflower seeds and always had them in his pocket. She remembers him as very tall and thin. He was very quiet. He rarely spoke English although he knew some English.

Betty thought that Grandma was not always blind. Apparently at the age of 42, Grandma caught measles which caused her blindness.

Grandpa Franz Peters died in 1952. Their is a family story that after his death, dad's siblings had a falling out.  Apparently my mom and dad were left to pay for the funeral expenses because  he was the only working sibling and deemed to be rich.  It was shortly after the funeral that most of the family moved to Vancouver.  That is all but my dad, Jake and Uncle John.   I guess things were never the same after that.

My recollection of Grandma was when we went to Vancouver to visit grandma, Mary, Katie and the and all their children.  The trip was long and dad was always uptight about driving in the huge Vancouver city.  We never knew where to find them as they were on welfare and were regularly evicted from their rentals.  So it was not uncommon for grandma to have two or three different addresses in one year  There was one family member that we had to call to get their latest address and directions to it. And I do not know who this one 'stable' relative was.  I do remember more than once dad drove down a one way street the wrong way.  In hindsight I hoped that dad's Saskatchewan license plate granted him forgiveness.

They lived in a very 'nasty part' of Vancouver and mom and dad kept a tight leash on us because of all the ne'er-do-wells out there.  Mary and Katie lived with grandma.  Mary was the one who took care of grandma after moving out to Vancouver and for the rest of Grandma Peters' life. 

Circa 1960's Lt to Rt. Mary Holding Unknown Baby, Elisabeth and Katie 

Finally we would arrive at Grandma's place.  Visits started out the same and that was with Grandma Peters “feeling us up” as my younger sister and I giggled through the whole thing.  She would have us stand in front of her and starting at our head she would feel our hair, face, shoulders, abdomen and sometimes our legs.  She would always be talking to my dad in German.  My dad like his father was a very quiet person who only spoke when spoken too.  Thus to see dad carry on a conversation and in German struck us dumb.  Dad was a different person when he was around his mother and siblings.  He looked relaxed, but that could be that he was on holidays. Dad also smiled and laughed with his sisters.  So nice to know this side of dad.

The last time I saw Grandma Peters, she was so frail, so hunched over and so so deaf. She sat next to the stove for warmth and had her radio blaring. Her most favorite thing to listen to was hockey games. Go figure. 

When it was time to leave Vancouver the grandchildren would line up in front of grandma who always gave us candy for our trip home – which was usually some very yummy salt water taffy.

Grandma died in in 1972. Mom and Dad went alone to Vancouver to be at the funeral. 

Grandma Elisabeth Peters Funeral - January 21, 1972. 

I knew she was buried somewhere in Vancouver but never really knew exactly where until a few years back.  My daughter lives in Vancouver and on one of my visits to her, I decided it was time to search it out and visit her graveside.  The office staff at City of Vancouver Mountain View Cemetery were so helpful.  They found her grave site and then said she was buried without a headstone because she was handled as a city case ( welfare recipient).  They then said they would put up a marker if I could come back a few days later and would be able to visit her exact location. 

2016 Fall - Grandmother Elisabeth Peters Unmarked Grave. Marked With the Yellow Flag. 

I didn't think it would be an emotional thing for me as I felt I hardly knew her, but it was.  I bought a couple of flowers and placed them on her grave site.  I was likely one of the few people who have ever visited her grave after she was buried.  It felt very right and I am so glad that my daughter helped me go after this information while visiting her in Vancouver.

These are most of my sisters and my recollections of our Grandmother Elisabeth Peters. I hope it sheds a little light on a small part of her life and that maybe some family members might have other memories they would like to share.  Sometimes it is the darnedest details that come to one's memory.

Today is February 2, 2021.  It seems fitting that I chose to blog about my grandparents this past week because Franz and Elisabeth Peters were married 119 years ago today on February 2, 1902. Franz Peters was 26 years old, a farmer who lived at Blumenthal Colony. Elisabeth was 21 years old spinster from Schoenthal Colony.  They were married at Blumenthal. Saskatchewan was actually not an official province thus they would have been married in the “NWT".  Their presiding clergyman was Peter Klassen from Neuanlage.  I wonder what their wedding day looked like.   Was their a banquet put on by the Mennonite colony?   Maybe it was only a blip in the day of a farmer's life on the colony.

The Rosthern Reserve of Mennonite Colonies.

Wendy H.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 3 Prompt - Organization

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 3

Prompt - Organization

The past several months  I have done very little research for my genealogy.  I have information and I need to get it organized so that I have it together in one place. I have a software program called Legacy. This program has all the bells and whistles that most genealogists could want for their family trees.  The only problem it has, is that it does not input itself!

Late last fall I started with myself and worked down, sideways and up my family tree.  Does that make sense?  The facts such as birth, christening, marriage, death and burial are the easy part.  What has become a mammoth task, has been putting in events for each individual.  An event is that thing that can put a person in a time and place.   For example, lets take The Canada Census which is available on line up to 1930 and in the United States up to 1940.   The 1921 census for Bill's grandfather, Arthur Jahnke, was enumerated on 21 Jun 1921.  At that specific time I am able to say that Arthur is a 27 year old male who was born in the USA around 1894.  He is married to Ida.  Arthur's mother and father were both born in Germany.  He immigrated to Canada about 1904 (actually it was 1903).  He resides in The Saltcoats area of Saskatchewan and to be specific;

Section Number 10

Township Number 21

Range Number 7

Meridian Number 2W

His occupation is farmer.  He owns his own land.   His household members include himself, wife, Ida and two year old Elsie Jahnke.  They are Lutheran.  Arthur can speak English but not French.

Thus from that one census I have events to include such as residence, occupation, religion etc.  I also remember that the census could be very unreliable for its information.   The enumerator often just guessed at the name as he heard it through heavily accented voice.  The person who gives the information may not be a reliable informant.

I have 70 plus events entered for Arthur Jahnke.  They span his entire life time.  They include things like the censuses, voters lists, confirmation, baptismal certificates, border crossings, school entries, gun registration, WWII registration cards etc. 

 Above is a partial page that shows me the events that I have for him.  The next step is to click on the individual event.  It brings up the next screen where I add a short sentence about the event. The reason for this step is that when I make up the individual reports for him, the events are in bullet form and readable for the report. 

 

All events should show it's source.   In Legacy I am able to enter it by following its templates for different types of sources.  All events have been individually entered into the source writer as above. 

Further I try to include a scanned copy of that source. Things like the actual census page or a marriage certificate.

It is at this point that I share the events with his family.  The census above was shared with his wife and daughter, Elsie creating an event in each of their pages.  By sharing the event I do not have to rewrite the event, source and photograph on their page.

It is seemingly complicated.  I have spent many months figuring Legacy out.  Well actually I have had it for several years but it has just been the past several months that I have added my information into some kind of organized chaos.

I started inputting entries with myself, then my siblings and parents,then my husband, his mother and father and now his maternal grandparents.   With each addition of a person or an expansion of a generation, the events become more intricate and it gets very convoluted to start sharing the events down, up and across the tree.  Also along the way I have discovered better ways to write the sentences or I change my mind on how to write a source for the information causing me to go back and rework the individuals and those who have shared the event that I have already worked on.  Round and round I go trying to get the information together.

I spend 4 to 6 hours each day on my laptop working on this genealogy.  And most of the time I find it enjoyable and rewarding.

I do this because I eventually want it to be a readable piece of family history and information for everyone to have.  Legacy is making that possible.

Here are a few examples of the reports I have produced for Arthur Jahnke.

 Page 1 of a 7 page Chronology Report. 

 

This is page 5 of a 20 page Individual Report for Arthur Jahnke.

 

This is how I try to organize the information that I have.  Legacy does the cute reports once I input the information.

 

Wendy

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 2 Prompt - Favourite Photo

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 2

Prompt – Favourite Photo

My father, Jacob (Jake) Peters died on September 22, 1983.  He was 66 years old.  He died in his home (as was his wish) of Pancreatic Cancer with Liver metastasis.

My mother and father went on a Hawaiian trip in February of that year.  If my memory serves me, I believe that they came home early because dad was unwell.  None the less he went to the doctor and by March 17^th had exploratory surgery.  The surgeons found cancer that had gone beyond the ability to treat it in any way surgically.  I remember that it was March 17^th because when my mom called to tell me about the outcome of dad's surgery, she said; “the luck of the Irish has run out because dad has inoperable cancer.”  He died 6 months later.

The family came together and we buried dad on Monday, September 26, 1983 in Woodlawn Cemetery in Saskatoon.  All my brothers and sister and their spouses were present.  Our children were present. However some did not attend grandpa's funeral because of their age.  After a very long and sad day we gathered that evening at my brother and sister in law's home.  Somehow we managed to gather up our rather rambunctious children in an attempt to photograph them.

The first attempt was less than successful.  Did I mention that they were full of energy?

       Grandpa Jake Peters' 13 Grandchildren.  September 26, 1983.

Back Row: Gregory Peters is sitting on Glenn Olajos lap.  Scott Lutz, Murray Cuthbertson, Joelle Peters

Front Row: Jill Hoffart, Sandy Lutz, Cathy Olajos is holding Matthew Cuthbertson, Sarah Lutz, Sue Lutz is holding Jackie Hoffart and Benjamin Peters.

Jake Peters' obituary stated he had 13 grandchildren. These are his grandchildren as photographed on the day of his funeral.  Their ages ranged from 4 months to 19 years old.

These children are his legacy.

JAKE PETERS - 1982

 

God Bless.

Wendy

P.S. There was 3 more grandchildren born after he died; Trent Peters and Lynn and Michael Cuthbertson.

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 1 Prompt - Beginnings

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

2021

Week 1

Prompt – Beginnings

There are those points in our lives where we can look back and say that is how it all began. In the case of my genealogy, I have to say that working on the family tree happened through a series of beginnings.

In my tween or teen years while visiting my grandmother McLaughlin, I admired the black and white photograph on her dresser. As it turns out it was her parents – Andreas and Maria Krikau. She told me they were born in Russia. And further she was also born in Russia. It amazed me.

The next incident happened when Bill and I were sitting in Pastor Guebert's office (a week before our wedding) filling out our marriage certificate. The pastor asked me what my mother's maiden name was. I was stumped by the question. The pastor was incredulous. Where was she born and at that time I wasn't sure. Hmm! This was a legal document and I wanted to get it right. I knew for sure she had not taken the name of her mother's second husband - McLaughlin despite everyone thinking that she was legally a McLaughlin. At that point I wasn't even sure whether her biological father was a Sullivan or O'Sullivan. It was complicated.

In January of 2006, I got together with some of my siblings and I started asking them pointed questions about our family. One weekend was hardly enough time but then I just needed to know what we all knew about some very easy facts.

It started with what was our mother's full name. I was recording their answers and no surprise we got Lydia Vivian (she went by her second name and we all knew that) and then stumbled on her last name. I was interested in her “legal” name. There was a consensus that she was not adopted by grandma's second husband, simply because my mother despised her step father. We decided it had to be Sullivan. But I wanted to set out and find out for sure. That was the hook.

From these seemingly little incidents, my passion and love of my family tree began.

Wendy