Tonight the closing ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics will take place in London. It has been thrilling to watch all of the athletes compete after they trained so very hard for so many years.
For years the Olympics have a running thread in my life. In grade school I was able to ice skate every winter at the park a block from our house. As I skated in circles around the rink, I would pretend that I was Sonja Henie participating in the Olympics. In the summers as I took a water ballet class, I would dream of being Esther Williams. I also remember hearing all the talk of Roger Bannister's 4 minute mile.
In 1980 we watched the United States Ice Hockey Team make a miracle happen by winning the gold medal in Lake Placid. It was a very cold Sunday afternoon when our neighborhood gathered in one house to watch the game together on a big screen TV. I think maybe it was a 24 inch screen! There was lots of yelling and cheering involved. A few adult beverages too.
In 1987 the company I worked for won a trip for 2 to the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. 3M was the vendor that awarded the trip to my company. To award the prize, my company based entry into the contest on attendance. To enter the contest one had to have perfect and on time attendance for the previous three months. When the drawing was held and my name was announced, I was amazed! The irony is that the day after the drawing I was late to work due to snow on the roads! It was a first class trip all the way. We were flown from Chicago to Minneapolis and spent the night in a hotel with all of the 3M guests. Our plane to Calgary was entirely 3M personnel and guests. I still have the jackets we received on arrival in Calgary. Since 3M had leased the use of a country club for their guests I was able to borrow a pair of ice skates and finally skate at the Olympics. (at not in an important distinction) Some of the events we attended were the opening ceremony, ski jumping, luge, downhill skiing, and ice hockey.
During the 2010 Olympics I began writing this blog after being inspired by Thomas MacEntee's Winter Genealogy Games. Overall I would have to say that the Olympics has played a recurring part in my life and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Friday, August 3, 2012
SNGF 2012 Genealympics Ancestry Flag
For these 2012 SNGF Genealympics, the motto is "Research, Cite, Analyze, Resolve, Conclude!"
Competitors can:
a) Design your own Genealympics flag to represent your ancestry, heritage or personal expression.
I have chosen to create a personalized flag reflecting my children's heritage. Germany is represented twice since my husband and I both have German heritage. The left side shows my heritage, Norwegian, German, and Irish. The right side represents my husband's heritage of Scottish, German, and Swedish.
The flags of Ireland and Sweden are a bit larger that the others to reflect a larger percentage of those ancestries. Of course the American Flag is the central focus since we are both at least 2nd generation Americans.
My blog began during the 2010 Winter Olympics so I definitely want to participate in these Genealympics. I'll be back!
Thursday, August 2, 2012
52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy - 2nd Cousin Once Removed
Week #31 – Cousins
Thorolf and Kari about 1949
Week 31: Cousins. One of the best experiences in family history is meeting with new cousins found through your research. Tell us about your favorite cousin meet-up. How did you discover each other? Where did you meet? What type of information was exchanged and how did it benefit your research?
There were several names running through the background of my childhood. Names like Munger, Dvorak, and Gist. When I began researching my ancestry these names came back to me but I could not relate them to my genealogy. One day when I was looking around on ancestry.com, I came across a tree for the Dvorak family. As I looked at the tree and read the associated stories, I realized this was the Dvorak family of my childhood memories. Betty Jane and I were playmates until the family moved away in the mid 1950s. I never knew her mother Lily was my dad's first cousin. My dad's father immigrated from Norway in 1892 with his sister and brother. Another brother followed them later and the third brother Thorolf Hansen remained in Norway to raise a family. Thorolf's daughter Lily immigrated to the United States in 1939 and met and married Otto (Bud) Dvorak. Their daughter Betty Jane was two months older than I.
After losing touch for about fifty years, Betty and I have been back in touch via e-mail. The best part is that Betty told me about her Norwegian cousins and gave me her cousin Kari's e-mail address. This spring my daughter and I flew to Norway for the Legacy Family Tree Cruise. At the end of the cruise we planned a couple of days in Norway in the hope of meeting Kari. The day the ship returned to Norway, Kari and her husband picked us up at our hotel and took us to their home for a typical Norwegian meal. Two of their daughters and three of their grandchildren also came to meet us. It was a wonderful visit and there were lots of pictures to take. I even got to hold and take photos of the medals Thorolf received from the Kings of Denmark, Sweden and Norway for his efforts as a resistance fighter during WWII.
Meeting Kari and her family, seeing Thorolf's medals, and visiting her childhood home have truly brought my Norwegian heritage to life and filled in the missing branches of my family tree.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
A Tale of Two Johns - Solving the Mystery Using Technology
It began with the answer to a question I asked my Grandmother when I was about eight years old. "Bockie" I had asked "why don't you ever go swimming when we are at the lake?" She relied that she was afraid of the water since her brother had drowned as a child. I accepted her statement at face value and moved on.
Years later when I began researching our genealogy and recording census forms, her answer to my question came to mind. My grandmother was the youngest of six children, two girls and four boys. Which of the boys had died? As I was using HeritageQuest online one day I happened on one line from the diary of a Milwaukee policeman. The line said only "Burbach's boy drowned today". This I felt totally substantiated my grandmother's statement. It was true. Of course in my excitement, I neglected to cite the source!
I still didn't know which of her brothers had drowned and to complicate matters further there were two related families with children of similar ages. Brothers John and Herman Burbach operated a butcher shop in Milwaukee in the 1880s and 1890s. Both men were raising families at the same time.
I used books.google to find the quote "Burbach's boy drowned today" and this time I cited the source and noted the date of the occurance. Next I checked the Wisconsin Death Records online at ancestory.com for the family name and year of 1892. I found the name John Burbach as having died on May 8, 1892.
Using obituary records from Milwaukee German Language newspapers (ordered from and translated by Gary Rebholz) I found obituaries for both a John and a Johnnie Burbach cousins, both aged 11. The death dates were 1892 and 1895. Who was who?
Using the 19th century newspapers online, Milwaukee Archdiocese Cemeteries online, and the Milwaukee City Directories online to determine which John/Johnnie lived at which address with which father, I was able to document the story of my grandmother's brother John. An additional nugget or information disclosed in the 19th Century Newspapers was the fact that John Burbach had made his confirmation at St Joseph's Church on the morning of his death.
John Burbach drowned on May 8, 1892 in the Milwaukee River. His two friends were rescued but John's body was not recovered for two weeks. He was finally buried on May 22, 1892 in Calvary Cemetery in Milwaukee.
All of this information was gathered while I was home in Texas! Hooray for technology!!
Years later when I began researching our genealogy and recording census forms, her answer to my question came to mind. My grandmother was the youngest of six children, two girls and four boys. Which of the boys had died? As I was using HeritageQuest online one day I happened on one line from the diary of a Milwaukee policeman. The line said only "Burbach's boy drowned today". This I felt totally substantiated my grandmother's statement. It was true. Of course in my excitement, I neglected to cite the source!
I still didn't know which of her brothers had drowned and to complicate matters further there were two related families with children of similar ages. Brothers John and Herman Burbach operated a butcher shop in Milwaukee in the 1880s and 1890s. Both men were raising families at the same time.
I used books.google to find the quote "Burbach's boy drowned today" and this time I cited the source and noted the date of the occurance. Next I checked the Wisconsin Death Records online at ancestory.com for the family name and year of 1892. I found the name John Burbach as having died on May 8, 1892.
Using obituary records from Milwaukee German Language newspapers (ordered from and translated by Gary Rebholz) I found obituaries for both a John and a Johnnie Burbach cousins, both aged 11. The death dates were 1892 and 1895. Who was who?
Using the 19th century newspapers online, Milwaukee Archdiocese Cemeteries online, and the Milwaukee City Directories online to determine which John/Johnnie lived at which address with which father, I was able to document the story of my grandmother's brother John. An additional nugget or information disclosed in the 19th Century Newspapers was the fact that John Burbach had made his confirmation at St Joseph's Church on the morning of his death.
John Burbach drowned on May 8, 1892 in the Milwaukee River. His two friends were rescued but John's body was not recovered for two weeks. He was finally buried on May 22, 1892 in Calvary Cemetery in Milwaukee.
All of this information was gathered while I was home in Texas! Hooray for technology!!
Sunday, July 8, 2012
John Burbach - Geneabloggers Sunday's Obituaries
This death notice only tells part of the story. John drowned in the Milwaukee River on May 8, 1892 and his body was not found until May 19, 1892. He was buried on May 22, 1892 in Calvary Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
My thanks to Gary Rebholz for his translations of the German newspapers of Milwaukee.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
It is WHEN not IF! It's data back-up day.
About a year ago, I was asked to do a general computer tips and tricks presentation to the Family History Center where I volunteer. It wasn't a large group but they were interested in learning. One of the topics we discussed was backing up your data. We covered the need to have multiple backup back-up copies in multiple locations. One gentleman raised his hand and said he didn't know how to back up his files except on his hard drive. He had 30 years of genealogy research and it was only on his hard drive! 30 YEARS WORTH! hoping nothing would happen in the meantime, I told him to bring it the next week and I would show him how to do a back-up. When he returned he brought his laptop, 2 flash drives, and 3 blank cds. We created multiple back-ups to be kept in different locations. Not all at home. I guess the lesson took because last week he came in with blank cds and asked me to create back-ups before he left for a trip to California!
It's not just genealogy files, correspondence, photos, finances, anything other than the actual programs needs to be backed up. Flash drives, cds (for now) and various cloud storage methods (drop-box and mozy are 2 cloud storage back-up methods) can be used. Back-up often and check your back-ups. If you don't know how to back-up your data you can google it or ask someone for help.
Friday, June 29, 2012
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