Wanted to tell ya'll that my summer travel plans have been somewhat revised. I was hoping to visit Croc and E (well, I know I didn't mention it before, but I would have<g>) but decided to wait until fall so we can do the leaf thing.
Have been digging around in the National Archives looking for geneology material. The nice reference librarian in Civil Reference found the personal file of my great-grandmother in the Carlisle Indian School files, and made me a copy even though I had missed the 1:30 pull so I should have had to wait until the 3:30 pull by the regular staff in the stacks, which, given my experiences at the Library of Congress, was astonishingly helpful, especially for a government employee.
Using stuff I found in that, I found more interesting things in the census files. But the most astonishing thing I found yesterday, while researching that great-grandmother, was a huge, 15 generation family tree on the internet, for her husband's family, my great-grandfather's family, whose last name was Hepler. Some demon geneologist woman has done a Hepler family tree all the way back to 1590 in Germany. My great-grandfather, Harvey, was 10th generation from the earliest identified ancestor. And even more astonishing, there is a Hepler family reunion in Pitman, PA, the first weekend in August. They have been having one since 1931.
I am planning to go, which I guess is a sign of impending age. I asked the kids if they wanted to go to a Hepler family reunion and meet distant relatives they didn't even knew they had, and they said no. I asked them, "would you rather go to the reunion or have your toenails pulled out with pliers?" Ben said "pliers" and Nick said "toenails." So Chris can't go, because Betty wants to go, and she is the oldest surviving person on our little twig of the tree.
This whole thing astonishes me because decades ago my Aunt Iris told me and Lydia information which we both wrote down, and when I finally got around to looking for it, the records just popped out, and everything Aunt Iris said was true, and accurate.
There are mysteries, but that's the fun part. I think my great-grandmother's mother was named Ida Premeau, and I have no idea how my great-grandmother's last name was King. Not a second marriage, I don't think, because I think I found the right Premeaus in St. John, North Dakota. I need to look at the land grant records from the Bureau of Land Management, that might help, as Frank Premeau seems to have had government land. In the Dakotas, back then, there was no central repository for birth records. I might be able to find baptismal records, but that could entail a trip to North Dakota. Chris and I may very well fly to Bismark later this summer, and rent a car, and drive to St. John, assuming that the baptismal records even exist. Certainly the court records still exist. Or maybe I will just do it by mail. Driving around North Dakota sounds like a lark. There is nothing there.
I feel as if there is something pulling me - I am reminded of one of my mottos - "Strange travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God." |
