As I posted before, I have left Ancestry.com but the tree remains for viewing by those I have invited to do so.
There is a new tree going up WikiTree and here is the link to My Hall Family Tree . Here also is the disclaimer. There are some family members who have expressly asked that I not share the information they have deliberately or inadvertently shared with me in any way and I am honoring this request. All information shared on WikiTree was researched through several internet genealogy sites and through genealogical books purchased both in hard copy and digital form.
While this tree is named Hall, it does include all known branches of my paternal and maternal ancestors. I have chosen to leave the Hall surname on it simply because this whole project started years ago with wanting to find out more about my father, Ronald William Hall, and his family origins.
As soon as I figure out how to get a live feed embedded here it will happen.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Thursday, April 3, 2014
The Genealogy Trail Continues
Recently I cancelled my subscription to Ancestry.com. The biggest reason for this is that I believe I have exhausted this resource for now. Since Ancestry has bought Find A Grave, the only hints popping up for me are the memorials I myself have added to Find A Grave, seems a little redundant. When I run searches, there is nothing new popping so for now it is bye bye to Ancestry.
The next step has become a scientific one. Yup, you got it, DNA testing. I am approaching this very gingerly and will see where it goes. First of all, there is great potential for spending massive amounts of money for tests which range from $59 upwards to $500 and $600 for complete panels. This cost can double when you start to look at testing for both male and female DNA.
Being the cautious person I am, I have opted for the lowest priced test, one for myself and one for my brother who will be doing the Y DNA test which can only be done by male descendants. I on the other hand will be doing the mtDNA which can only be done by female descendants. These tests are meant to give you an idea of where in the world your family originated.
There are two reasons I am interested in both my maternal side and my paternal side. The first is to know where my Hall family line originated. After trying for over 20 years to break through the brick wall there, I have come to the conclusion that the best I can hope for is to maybe find out where our ancestral lands are.
The second is to confirm or deny where the maternal ancestral lands lay as I have come across many different family stories through my years of research.
This new genealogical path promises to be interesting and I can't wait to find out where my ancestors actually came from.
The next step has become a scientific one. Yup, you got it, DNA testing. I am approaching this very gingerly and will see where it goes. First of all, there is great potential for spending massive amounts of money for tests which range from $59 upwards to $500 and $600 for complete panels. This cost can double when you start to look at testing for both male and female DNA.
Being the cautious person I am, I have opted for the lowest priced test, one for myself and one for my brother who will be doing the Y DNA test which can only be done by male descendants. I on the other hand will be doing the mtDNA which can only be done by female descendants. These tests are meant to give you an idea of where in the world your family originated.
There are two reasons I am interested in both my maternal side and my paternal side. The first is to know where my Hall family line originated. After trying for over 20 years to break through the brick wall there, I have come to the conclusion that the best I can hope for is to maybe find out where our ancestral lands are.
The second is to confirm or deny where the maternal ancestral lands lay as I have come across many different family stories through my years of research.
This new genealogical path promises to be interesting and I can't wait to find out where my ancestors actually came from.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Wheeler Park
Recently we moved to what is affectionately known as "Lower" North Mankato. It is an interesting neighborhood rich in history and diverse in culture which I am just starting to tap into. One of the reasons we moved to where we now live was the architecture. The buildings are brick and the apartments are styled with a hallway arch and lots of light and windows, the two things that sold me on the place.
Through incidental conversation, I have found out that these apartments were built in the 40's for troops returning from World War II. I also learned that Wheeler Park, across the street from the apartment buildings, was once the Wheeler & Bennett Brickyard and the reason the park is below street level on our side of the park is that this was where there was once a clay pit there. From this pit, workers dug the clay from which the Wheeler & Bennett bricks were made. It would also be my guess that the building we live in was built from Wheeler & Bennett bricks from this brickyard.
Here is a picture of the Wheeler Brickyard from the Minnesota Reflections Collection of the Minnesota Digitial Library <http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/blue/id/2895/rec/1>.
Here are some pictures I took last fall facing the same direction across Wheeler Park. I am not sure my orientation is completely correct and I suspect that the original picture was taken further back than I was from a point that is now built up.
Through incidental conversation, I have found out that these apartments were built in the 40's for troops returning from World War II. I also learned that Wheeler Park, across the street from the apartment buildings, was once the Wheeler & Bennett Brickyard and the reason the park is below street level on our side of the park is that this was where there was once a clay pit there. From this pit, workers dug the clay from which the Wheeler & Bennett bricks were made. It would also be my guess that the building we live in was built from Wheeler & Bennett bricks from this brickyard.
Here is a picture of the Wheeler Brickyard from the Minnesota Reflections Collection of the Minnesota Digitial Library <http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/blue/id/2895/rec/1>.
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| Brickyard, North Mankato, about 1895 |
This picture was taken facing the area that would eventually be Page Avenue with Wheeler Avenue the next street down and then Belgrade Avenue, North Mankato's main street..
Here are some pictures I took last fall facing the same direction across Wheeler Park. I am not sure my orientation is completely correct and I suspect that the original picture was taken further back than I was from a point that is now built up.
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| Wheeler Park, Fall, 2013 |
Monday, November 11, 2013
Veterans Day
A veteran, whether active duty, retired or National Guard or Reserve, is someone who at one point in their life wrote a check payable to The United States of America for an amount of "up to and including their life."
~ Author Unknown ~
There have been many military veterans in my family tree. Today I honor my father who served in the US Navy for 20 years.
~ Author Unknown ~
There have been many military veterans in my family tree. Today I honor my father who served in the US Navy for 20 years.
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Tuesday, November 5, 2013
My Dad, Ron Hall
Ronald William Hall was born to William Jonathan (Bill) Hall
and Frances Minnie Fuhrman in Southwestern Iowa He was a ‘lifer’ in the Navy
and he was my Dad. When I lost Dad I never knew I could feel such emptiness.
Even though we didn’t get along very well most of time, I knew he loved me and
I knew that if I ever needed him to be there for me he would be there. Perhaps
it was because he was my first parent to die or perhaps it was because I had
just begun to get to know him without Mom or perhaps it was a combination of
both.
By the time I was born, Dad was cruising around the Orient
aboard the USS Hornet. There were several more cruises, all so Dad could be
stationed at Los Alamitos NAS and we could live in California except for a few
stints in Minnesota, Illinois and Tennessee. (That is a long story about
military bureaucracy and red tape.)
Dad retired from the Navy in 1975 and moved to Minnesota.
Eventually he divorced Mom and moved from Minnesota to Iowa where he remarried
for a short time before he died in 1985.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Great Grandma and Grandpa Fuhrmann
Friedrich Fuhrmann and
Christina (Nagel) Fuhrmann were my great grandparents. They were the parents of
my Grandma Hall. I never knew either of them as they both died before I was
born. I actually never even knew who they were until a few years ago.
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| Christina (Nagel) Fuhrmann |
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| Friedrich Fuhrmann |
Eventually they settled in
Cathay, Wells County, North Dakota and raised 12 children, Grandma Hall was
#10. She was just 13 years old when her
mother died.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Bertha Anna Maria Kuester
Today I would like to share my great grandmother, my mother's maternal grandmother. We all just called her Gross Grandma. In some ways I didn't know her well at all and in others I knew her better than people might think. My clearest memory was of going to visit her with my Grandma. It was the summer when our family took a long road trip to the Midwest from the West Coast to visit family we hadn't seen in several years.
By this time Gross Grandma lived in the geriatric ward of the local hospital. I clearly remember walking into the day room and the stir it caused among the residents, some of whom very seldom received visitors much less 12 year old girls. Gross Grandma was not a bit happy about it either, we were her guests and she made it clear to everyone there that this was the case. I sat down with Gross Grandma while Grandma went off to talk to someone, I assume a nurse to see how Gross Grandma was doing. While I sat there, Gross Grandma talked to me in a mixture of German and English, finally switching over to all English. We sat and talked and watched her favorite afternoon show, The Dating Game. When Grandma came back, all three of us went down to the hospital coffee shop for a dessert which was the highlight of Gross Grandma's day. When I was older I would understand the reason for this. It was because she was diabetic and this was the one exception to the rule.
There were other trips and I do remember visiting Gross Grandma at her house with the funny front porch that wrapped around one corner of the house. I remember how her house smelled of the cooking and cleaning that she did and the Black Forest cuckoo clock she had hanging on the wall in her living room. These memories are not nearly as clear as the last time I visited her.
Gross Grandma was born November 22, 1883 in Leipzig, Germany. Her family came directly to New Ulm, Minnesota from Germany around 1884 when she was about 11 years old. On May 17, 1905, she married my Gross Grandpa, Fritz Rauschke. The next year they built their house in New Ulm. This is the house she lived in when all four of her children were born, the house where her four children were raised and where she lived until the day she went to live in the geriatric ward of Union Hospital in New Ulm. The house still stands and once in a while when I am in New Ulm, I drive by just because I can.
Gross Grandma died January 12, 1970 at the age of 86. I believe that she lived a full life that was not without the problems and sorrows that any life has. She is buried in the St Paul's Church Cemetery in New Ulm, Minnesota with her husband who predeceased her by over 20 years. I still visit her there whenever I am in New Ulm. My maternal grandparents, my mother and several other family are buried nearby and I visit them as well.
One of my favorite photos of Gross Grandma is one that is faded, a little hard to see and was taken when she was about 16 years old. Taken before she became a wife; taken before she was a mother; taken when she was a teenager, barely more than a child herself. This is something I have trouble wrapping my mind around, sometimes it is hard to imagine Gross Grandma being a youthful 16 year old. Perhaps this is why I go back to this photo often and try to see what I can see in it. I close this post with that photo.
By this time Gross Grandma lived in the geriatric ward of the local hospital. I clearly remember walking into the day room and the stir it caused among the residents, some of whom very seldom received visitors much less 12 year old girls. Gross Grandma was not a bit happy about it either, we were her guests and she made it clear to everyone there that this was the case. I sat down with Gross Grandma while Grandma went off to talk to someone, I assume a nurse to see how Gross Grandma was doing. While I sat there, Gross Grandma talked to me in a mixture of German and English, finally switching over to all English. We sat and talked and watched her favorite afternoon show, The Dating Game. When Grandma came back, all three of us went down to the hospital coffee shop for a dessert which was the highlight of Gross Grandma's day. When I was older I would understand the reason for this. It was because she was diabetic and this was the one exception to the rule.
There were other trips and I do remember visiting Gross Grandma at her house with the funny front porch that wrapped around one corner of the house. I remember how her house smelled of the cooking and cleaning that she did and the Black Forest cuckoo clock she had hanging on the wall in her living room. These memories are not nearly as clear as the last time I visited her.
Gross Grandma was born November 22, 1883 in Leipzig, Germany. Her family came directly to New Ulm, Minnesota from Germany around 1884 when she was about 11 years old. On May 17, 1905, she married my Gross Grandpa, Fritz Rauschke. The next year they built their house in New Ulm. This is the house she lived in when all four of her children were born, the house where her four children were raised and where she lived until the day she went to live in the geriatric ward of Union Hospital in New Ulm. The house still stands and once in a while when I am in New Ulm, I drive by just because I can.
Gross Grandma died January 12, 1970 at the age of 86. I believe that she lived a full life that was not without the problems and sorrows that any life has. She is buried in the St Paul's Church Cemetery in New Ulm, Minnesota with her husband who predeceased her by over 20 years. I still visit her there whenever I am in New Ulm. My maternal grandparents, my mother and several other family are buried nearby and I visit them as well.
One of my favorite photos of Gross Grandma is one that is faded, a little hard to see and was taken when she was about 16 years old. Taken before she became a wife; taken before she was a mother; taken when she was a teenager, barely more than a child herself. This is something I have trouble wrapping my mind around, sometimes it is hard to imagine Gross Grandma being a youthful 16 year old. Perhaps this is why I go back to this photo often and try to see what I can see in it. I close this post with that photo.
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| Bertha Kuester; 1901; Age 16 |
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