Tuesday, January 01, 2008

The Greatest Genealogical Find Ever?

Craig asked this question at GeneaBlogie and wrote about his recent find. There are some breakthroughs I'm proud of and happy about: finding the HOLTERMANNs and LANKAUs in Germany. In both cases, there was a little guesswork and luck after a few years of step-by-step research. The results were very satisfying, even if I wasn't able to go back several generations.

As great as I felt at the moment of finding that information, I have five as of yet undiscovered finds that would equal or exceed the HOLTERMANN and LANKAU breakthroughs (with apologies to those and all other ancestors).
  • Magdalena Maria "Helena" (HUHN) POHL (1832-1920): She is just one of a handful of German immigrant ancestors from the 19th century I cannot trace back to a specific village. I have a lot of German ancestry and to be so close to completing the immigrant stage of research is both exciting and frustrating.
  • Adam FUCHS (1819-1906) and family: Another family without a home (in my records).
  • Ferdinand Friedrich HOLZ (1805-?): This family came to America as a group in 1854, and a son and daughter settled in St. Louis. But what happened to Ferdinand, his wife and other daughters? There are two ways this research could go. Part of me feels the answers are literally right under my nose considering I live in area. The names must be recorded illegibly, right? If so, it's just a matter of time before I stumble upon something that leads to their local church and cemetery records. On the other hand, what if Ferdinand took the rest of the family elsewhere, bucking the trend of my other Missouri Germans? It may be time to search again like Craig suggested in another post.
And of course, this list wouldn't be complete without these two cases:
  • Ferdinand EBERT (1813?-1856?) and his wife Agatha ALLENBRANDT (sp?) (1815?-1895): I've written about this family several times. I would tell family members to reserve a date for a party if I found out where they came from. OK, so no one would come due to lack of interest, but still.
  • John HEATON (1810?-1844): Another ancestor whose roots I'm a little obsessed with. I have found out that there is a HEATON DNA project underway, but there is so far just one submitter.
And I'm sure I'd find enormous satisfaction in finding British roots, but I just can't seem to really get into Colonial research even though I should.

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