Friday Findings - Discovering the Details

I am changing Follow Friday to Friday Findings so I can share some of my search processes in the hope that it will help someone else in their efforts. Leopold is a very unusual name Swedish name so I thought tracking my husbands great-grandfather and his wife would be an easy task.  Not so much.

Leopold Peterson and Caroline Neilson appear in the 1880 census as a married couple living in Chicago with their 3 children, Annie, John, and Frank.  According to the census, Leopold and Caroline had both been born in  Sweden and immigrated 1870 and 1871 respectively.  Daughter Annie was born in Massachusetts in 1875.  In 1892, on the Chicago voters registration, Leopold indicated that his naturalization papers were filed in Boston.

As I searched for more information,  it became apparent that the answers were in Massachusetts, probably Boston.  I looked for Leopold and/or Caroline in the 1870 census without much hope since they had said their arrival was in 1870 and 1871.  Next I ordered the Massachusetts Marriage records for 1872 and 1873 from the Family History Center.  I selected those years based on both the immigration dates and the birth of Annie in Massachusetts.  I found the marriage record of Leopold and Caroline in the LDS film # 1433032.  They were married 11 Aug 1873 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts.  According to the record, Leopold was a 22 year old cabinet maker and Caroline was 26.  Leopold's parents were Peter and Anna, Caroline,s parents were Neils and Kare, Rev. George S Noyer officiated.  After searching the Boston City directories for 1872/73, I found that Rev Noyes was associated with the the Bethel Church at North Square in Boston.  It was a Methodist Episcopal Church organized in 1828.

I have found Caroline's birth record and her parents but I am still looking for Leopold's birth and parents.  Finding the parents first names at least tells me that they followed the standard Scandinavian naming practices.  Now how do I find Peter and Anna the parents of Leopold?  Any suggestions out there?

Friday Findings - Documenting a Family Story

When I was a child, our family went to Aunt Kathy's cottage in Indiana every summer.  The cottage was on the shore of Lake Michigan and was the high point of the summer.  For the kids it meant swimming and sand every day, all day.  For mom and dad it meant work of a different kind.  Usually my dad's mother, my grandmother "Bockie", went to the lake with us.  At some point, I noticed that Bockie never, ever went down to the beach, much less into the water.  When I asked why Bockie never went near the water, I was told that when she was a little girl her brother had drowned and since then she had been terrified of the water.

Later as I began doing genealogy, the story of Bockie's brother came back to me.  How to find out if it was true?  In documenting the family of Hermann and Eva Burbach, Bockie's parents, I found the birth of John Burback in January 1881 and his death in 1892.  He was eleven when he died and Bockie was four when her brother died.  Using HeritageQuest Online, I was able to find a diary entry by William Sizer dated May 8, 1892.  The entry said only "...Burbach's boy drowned this PM...".  In my mind this proves the story.