Have You entered the sweepstakes? - The Ultimate Family History Journey Sweepstakes sponsered by "Who Do You Think You Are?"

Can you imagine me or you winning the The Ultimate Family History Journey Sweepstakes in conjunction with its sponsership of " Who Do You Think You Are" Sweepstakes? " It's hosted by ancestry.com. [I should read more of the fine print and details.]


Can you imagine going to your Ancestors Homeland which in my case is Germany? More information to be gained and a chance to see the homeland for yourself. Imagine seeing the Dahlenburg - Oldendorf - Goehrde battle ground and the Royal game reserve at Roethen where grandpa Willy Meyer, Wilhelm Saucke, and the Schroeders worked. And the land they actually owned after working for others for so many years.
Sweepstakes winner gets-
Along with 20,00- dollars of travel expenses you get eight hours of consutlation time with an expert Genealogist and help from up to 5 experts in fields relevant to your fields of family history. World Deluxe memberships.

And we can enter twice a day.
It has me thinking, speculating with questions.
1. A question to fellow genealogists and bloggers. What path would you follow, if you won, where would you hope to go? Which family line would you choose and why?


11. A question to all family and readers, which do you think we need or want to know more about? Where would you like to see me go and find family. Surnames? Who? What homeland should we see? Radenbeck - Thomasburg, Neetzendorf, Eichdorf, Dahlenburg, Nahrendorf, and Oldendorf, Rothen, Dannenberg. Or home of the Heins at Bergen Celle? Or to France for Royers background?
Your imput is welcome.

This little dream of winning has me thinking, speculating with other questions, which I'll save for a next time.

jo arootdigger 

Last Post about the Jesse James Gang in Minnesota with a Website to share

While doing my last post about Madelia and the Jesse James Gang members capture and the robbery ot the First national Bank at Northfield' I found and grew to admire this website by "death2urproductions LLc"idabout the Jesse James Gang members. It mentions details worthy of a Genealogist and well done as a historian. He has pictures and tombstones among other good resources donating to the truth.

Not only detail on those who were in the Robbery of the First National Bank at Northfield and the details of activity near Madelia, but he has other noted famous names here which could come in handy some day while your researching or writing.

You can read "about us" to learn more of the creators.

I hope you take time to check it out. See you later.

jo arootdigger

Website :
http://www.death2ur.com/northfield_minnesota_bank_raid.htmlcation

History of Madelia and Northfield, Minnesota with Jesse James Gang in old Newspaper

Northfield in the media.
I wonder why the author or producers of the well known old tv show called the "Golden Girls" chose Northfield, Minnesota location as the location for Rose Nylund's [ Actress Betty White ] made up towns called "St. Olaf " and "Gustavus" where Rose was suppose to be from. The Fake towns were in fact names of colleges at Northfield location. Perhaps she or they had heard something about the members of the Jesse James gang activities there and the locations just stuck in their minds. [. ] Decorah Iowa and North field are known as good places to begin your research on your Norwegian descendants. Maybe they chose the location because Nylund Nyland is more of a Swedish name than maybe Irish ? [ Yes I looked up name origination, it always helps to browse it.] That's a mystery to solve another day.


The Meyer children attended public school in Madelia, so the news of the robbery at the town of Northfield and the apprehension of the members of Jesse James gangs near Madella had been told since primary grades. Once I heard about having surnames James and Young, in the family, I pursued the information about the gang quite a few years ago. I was relieved to learn our family were Youngs, and they were the Younger brothers.

Searching the News paper archives
Currently, I was searching for a 1945 - 1946 newspaper article at ancestry.com for a newspaper from Madelia, which might have had something about Herman Meyer's house fire for my lewisville minnesota blog, The Meyer home was thirty miles from Fairmont, Martin county and ten miles from St. James. Maybe about fifty from Mankato. I have been running the names of all but St. James into Ancestry newspapers in hopes of some article. [ It has amazed me how much the name of Madelia has been popping up.]


The newspaper article below titled "Bad un"s in 28.Sept.1876 - newspaper -The Constitution
[ from Atlanta Georgia ] in column six about the capture of some of the Jesse James gang was a real delight. It would be even better if it were from a Madelia or local newspaper, but I doubt any archives go back that far for Madelia. Maybe Mankato or Northfield or some other large city near there. Just a few weeks ago, I had been browsing the Minnesota Historical Society pictures and one particular picture with a small article about the pose that went out after the gang, and a picture of the of the Flanders Hotel in Madelia where the Jesse James gang members were seen. I remember reading that one person in that pose died.

For more like this clipping go to Ancestry.com 

Locations descriptions and Names
Of interest in the article of course is the location descriptions and the names.
I had read before of the name Sorbel of a Hanska area recognized some faces. similar to this news articles account about the young hero Oscar Oleson. The article at Minn state Historical collection mentioned that one of the posse - Charles Pitt had been killed.

Found on line. Copyright

One particular name in this article that I will pursue for more information sometime is the surname PITT. M&M had mentioned the surname Pitts to me. I knew some Pitts who had come around from Madelia, I think, to do the Meyer sheep shearing before Dewey quit raising sheep.

At times over the years, I had read something about the path the gang took and that they stopped at a Creek, etc. My curiosity had been caught. I wondered if they came up from the south,west or even the east and then which way would they travel on horse?. Would they ever have stopped at the Meyer little Creek. Gangsters were always after railroad Passengers and the railroad ran north and south not even a mile east of Sunnyslope Farm. However, I am not sure the train was not known to take passengers. [ One once that I know of in another newspaper article. ] If one reads and looks at the Minnesota Historical Reflection collections, one can see how open and undeveloped the land was at that time. I would say, more so than the area of Churdan Iowa surely was, when our ancestors moved into the Highland areas.

online copyright

The good guys
It is amazing that we hear that such a bunch of bad guys could be so well liked by the public, yet there was talk of lynching. And I am proud to learn of the sense of fair play that those who held him captured in Madelia exhibited.

Historical reading
I hope you enjoy reading the clippings. and the Minnesota Historical links to Northfield and Madelia. Perhaps take the time to browse the Refection in the Minnesota Historical collection.
- If you have time, you can google for more information. For instance, I found one article which claimed the bandits chose the First National bank because the bank president was a former union officer. This information reflects back to their lifes history and attitudes of theirs towards their civil war years.

I wonder how well travelled that article in copies etc., was across America. Lots of historical tidbits on the gangs activities and life were added to our history of the event over the years. This the case when history of one region becomes every ones.


My Article Source :
http://search.ancestry.com/browse/view.aspx?dbid=6388&iid=news-ga-atlanta-theconst.1876_09_28_0001&rc=3931,2208,4053,2241;3884,2500,4012,2533;3665,3042,3802,3075;4060,3171,4216,3204;3941,3563,4034,3596;3981,3858,4051,3891;3723,3954,3789,3987;3806,4188,3961,4221;3791,4446,3921,4479;4490,2962,4653,2995;4391,2996,4559,3029;4485,5612,4623,5645&pid=459599873&ssrc=&fn=&ln=Fire+Madelia+Lewisville+Fairmont+Mankato+Minnesota&st=g

-Ancestry.com. The Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2002.Original data: The Constitution. Atlanta, GA, USA. Database created from microfilm copies of the newspaper.

More on Nyland or Nylund in Minnesota.
Swedish and MINNESOTA
NORTH FIELD, SWEDISH INSTITUTE
Ass kickin'

2011 Meyer family Descendants - Genealogy Family History

Welcome to New Year 2011 blogging about the Meyer family. I have mentioned Fred and William to you many times along with other well known ancestors. It's a new year and it's time to let the children descendants and their families history be known.Some of the children have been introduced to you already.

I should start with the oldest son. Juegen Hch. Wilhelm Meyer [born 1843] is no stranger to you. He may be known to you as Grandpa Willy married to Grandma Mary.I think too he was thought of as Henry.    Are you acquainted with his Daughter Minnie? You may have heard her referred to as Minnie [Wilhelmina Anna] STOLLEY. I've listed the children to make it easier for you. The [G] stands for born in Germany. The others America.

Juergen Heinrich William and Mary Meyer Children

 1.   Johan Heinrich Wilhelm- Oldendorf [G] 1873 – 1952
 2.     Anna Meyer [Bennett] [ G]1875 – 1969
 3.     Otto Albert Meyer [G] 1877 – 1877
4.      Mary Wilhelmina Bertha Meyer [Nahnsen][ G] 1880 – 1 962
5.      Herman Henry Meyer [G] 1881 – 1967 1873 – 1952\
6.      Henry William Meyer [G] 1883 – 1884 died in America after arrival.
7.      Frieda Meyer 1885 – 1979
8.      Emma Mary Elizabeth Meyer [Cain] 1886 – 1981
9.      Wilhelmina Anna Mary Meyer [ Stolley] 1888 – 1976
10.    Frederick Henry August Meyer 1890 – 1914
11.    Louise Ella Alvina Meyer 1891 – 190 
12.    Infant son Meyer 1893 – 1893
13.    Lilly Emma Louise 

Note: The name Wilhelmina name occurs several times in the family naming. Child # four has it as well. I think there is a good reason for it.
http://arootdigger.blogspot.com/2010/10/more-warnecke-1880-at-oldendorf.html
Meyer and other surnames Descendants at a reunion.
http://whatchamacallum.blogspot.com/2009/02/superbowl.html I believe all of Wilhelm's children were named for family members of the past, even though they were baptised in Calhoun county with other people as god parents.


Minnie, child number nine on 8.jan.1908 married the Rudolph August Stolley that you see in my last post. - [Just click Older if it is not below this post.] The family history on that post revolves to the Anthony Lewis Martin family via the Descendants of the Laura Dorothea Stolley family. The tree can be viewed at Ancestry.com. There will be more to come on each Meyer child.

JO AROOTDIGGER

MEYER, STOLLE, STOLLEY, MARTIN, kRUSE, PETERS Minnesota and Iowa

Now that we have started the New Year 2011 blogging about the children of J.H. William Meyer and Maria Heins we need to move on today to his daughter Wilhelmina Anna. Meyer Stolley? You may have heard her referred to as Minnie Stolley. ~~


8. Emma Mary Elizabeth Meyer [Cain] 1886 – 1981
9. Wilhelmina Anna Mary Meyer [ Stolley] 1888 – 1976

Minnie, child number nine on 8.jan.1908 married the Rudolph August Stolley that you see below.
~~

Rudolph August Stolley
Born: 7.Aug.1887
Davenport, Iowa, USA
Riverside, Fremont, Iowa
Died: 9 Dec 1945
Iowa City, Iowa, USA
-wife
Wilhelmina Anna Meyer
Born: 24.Sep.1888
Churdan, Iowa, USA
Died:

Rudolph's parents
John Frederick Stolley
Born: 18.Nov.1841
Hannover, Germany
-lived
Franklin, Washington, Iowa
Highland, Washington, Iowa
Died: 10.Jul.1924
Iowa City, Iowa, USA

His Mother: Magdolena Katherine Kruse or
Magdalena Catherine
Born: 12.Aug.1850
Germany
Died: 11.Aug.1914
Riverside, Iowa, USA
[ Parents of Magdolena Kruse - Henry Kruse and Dorothy Peters ]


The family history today revolves to the Anthony Lewis Martin family with his marriage to Laura Dorothea Stolley. The tree can be viewed at Ancestry.com.

An old clipping from the family photo book

Father: Samuel Martin born Germany
Mother: Mary Ann Skinner born Germany
-His son: Anthony Lewis Martin
Birth: 12.Dec.1873 - Troy, [Waldo, Maine,] USA
Death: 21.Apr.1943 - Madelia, Watonwan, Minnesota, USA
Marriage: 19.Dec.1901 - Riverside, Fremont, Iowa, USA
Parents: Samuel Martin, Mary Ann Skinner
Spouse: Laura Dorothea Stolley



Children Of Anthony Lewis Martin and Laura Stolley
.............................................................
1. Irma Minnie Martin Olson [Ole]
Born: 17.Feb.1903
Riverside, Iowa, USA
Died: 16.Dec.1966
Rosemount, Minnesota, USA
They lived in a cute cottage of a house in Hazel Run, Minnesota. After her husband died, she must have gone back to school for more certification. I found her 1954 graduation commencement in great detail online from the University of Minnesota pdf file.
Spouse of Irma: Ole H Olson
Born: 14.Sep.1882
Kongsberg, Norway
Died: 28.Feb.1945
Lived Yellow Medicine county, Minnesota

2. Leathea Marinda. Martin Schenk [Edward]
died in Wisconsin around Wabena, Schwano, Wi
.......................................................


Laura Dorothea [Dora] Stolley
Birth: 2 .march.1883 in Davenport, Scott??
Death 5. Dec. 1950 in Riverside, Fremont, Iowa, USA] Stolley
I also will have to check stones and vitals and census. So far census say 1883
The Meyer book contains a lot of this information, but not all of it.

Laura's father: John Frederick Stolley
Born: 18.Nov.1841 in Hannover, Germany
Died: 10. Jul.1924 in Iowa City, Iowa, USA
Her Mother: Magdolena Katherine Kruse
Born: 12.Aug.1850
Germany
Died: 11.Aug.1914
Riverside, Iowa, USA
[ Parents of Magdolena Kruse: Henry Kruse and Dorothy Peters ]
.............................................

Rudolph and Laura are brother and sister. See below.
John Frederick Stolley and Magdolena Katherine's Children.
........................................................

1. John Stolley
1877 –
2. Minnie Stolley
1880 –
3. Laura Stolley
1883 – 1900 census lists this age.
4. Anna Stolley
1885 –
5. Rudolph August Stolley
1887 - 1945

_His wife:
Wilhelmina Anna Meyer
Born: 24.Sep.1888
Churdan, Iowa, USA
Died:
Child of Juregen H. Wilhelm Meyer and Maria Dorothea Heins.
.
.................................................................

I hope It is clear. Without a chart or software, I wonder sometimes.
There will be more information on these two and their spouses at a later time. Because we need to bring in the Wieland family. I think that is enough on Stolley, Stolle and the Martin family for today. Let me know if there is more to add on, or errors, etc.
Thanks for coming by.
just me jo arootdigger..................................................................



Note: There is more than one tree and a few sport the wrong dates
*Spouse: Laura Dora Stolle [ Dora I suppose because Her name has been spelt Dorathy ]
B: 12.Dec.1873
D: 21.Apr. 1943
also I have seen Locations where the location noun next to it might not mean county. Such as Iowa city, Wright, Iowa.

For more reading, how about a personal story about Irma Martin Olson?.
http://lewisvilleminnesota.blogspot.com/2011/01/genea-blogger-came-up-with-personal-way.html

jo arootdigger

Following Family History and Genealogy Bloggers Friday

This my First attempt to follow on Friday.
Many moons ago, I figured out how to find other bloggers with common interests. I am sure the rest of you know the secret, so I won't bore you with the details. I was following those of genealogy last night, and this morning I tried family history. I used to bookmark some sites I liked now and I follow them, and sometimes add them to the blog roll if they have features which will not allow me to bookmark. Or sometimes it's just difficult to find them, because they don't leave a very good trail of bread crumbs, so I can visit them again.
I observed while cruising, that a great deal of family history bloggers were from England, Australia or New Zealand. And western states, and eastern states Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Not all that much from the mid west, and that's probably due to the fact they're busy shoveling snow or sitting in the basement, because of tornadoes. Most of the lady bloggers had an interest as well with crafts and decorating. Just as my find for Friday does.

My find to share today is
from this blog address-- http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/
I know most bloggers of genealogy detest people taking content from their pages, even if you have followed them on Friday, whereas it once was more acceptable for decor bloggers. I believe I am the cut and paste queen, but not so obviously today. So I will try and tell you in my own words and with links what you will find there.
First of all Caroline Gurney from Caro's Family Chronicles belongs to Society of Genealogists that puts out a book with a darling picture of a child on it's cover, called "My Ancestor Was A Bastard." I intend to look and find out what the story is on that one. There are many more delightful books at that link. [ Hopefully one on the Red Cross worker..]

Maybe your like me and you gravitate towards those people with humor, so I thought you might enjoy her first post on the page. " 10 things my ancestors did to annoy me". Some of us have some annoying ancestors. Her first onehit me as similar to my situation. They settled where three counties meet. My Webster, Calhoun and Greene counties of Iowa meet near Farnhamville. So I get it.[ Though maybe mine has a little more distance between them than hers.] Some day I'll have to see if she mentions any surgeon Gurney in California. husband of my[Lois] Carter descendant.

She has been busy restoring a 300 year old house and blogging about that as well as her other blogs - This old house; The Sodbury Blog; Caro's Place; and carosfamily.com She is from Chipping Sodbury in South Gloucestershire. Caroline is a history graduate from Bristol University and a former diplomat and civil servant, involved in teaching computing and family history with hobbies of family history, computers, blogging since may 2007 and sudoku. Besides being married with two grown-up children. Like many of us she has a personal site, "devoted to all the things that make life good" that we need to just express ourselves.


She follows Genea Bloggers, Dr Bill, Ancestry.com blog, Ancestry Insider among others.
Her posts are informative, has tips for research, at times amusing, so I would say your time is well spent Following the blog with Caroline at

Caro's Family Chronicles

Note: There was no feed for Follow. But you can bookmark the site.

Not a good thing, -- Looking for copyrighting.

I don't believe the discovery of Website Description "Every Website Matters" is a good thing. It has my latest post there, and I am sure my last one will be noticed.?? This makes me very uncomfortable! His is copyrighted!

However, the good thing is that the comment about how many ranks and views our blogs get is exciting; because it means we google Bloggers get our information out there to those of our relatives in the dark about our families histories, and thus might find us.

At the top at the right it says to leave comments about the website with my name. And I did try, but so far I have not gotten through. Then at the bottom of the page it offers a script to embed in a persons blog which more or less says this, cause i changed it a bit:

Let akiui Others nkjhghjk Know:

To link to gtyhujiklkj this page from your site yghjikol please copy lkjh and paste the hjk code below to your poijhgfjkllkjhg homepage to which I now have added abc code to break it:

arootdigger';lkhjgfdfghjkl;.blogspot.com websitelkiujtfdsfghjkl description'p;hyugtfghjl

The above kljhgftyui will display as the iujhgfghjkaddress in the blog with mine:
[And again it uses mine with its name.]

Then it has a little bubble at top right about Bulk submissions .cum about directories. Which is probably not a good thing? Money is mentioned there and many websites.
I do tend to have to many cached posts. I hope to be more careful. Evidently people can hijack them somehow. I would like to know how.

I think this means I should contact google adsense. I should seriously find some kind of copyrighting. I am considering free services if there is such a thing. I am going to check Cindies list first.

But I will take any suggestions you have. I am uncomfortable that they urge others to use that small script embed in their blogs or pages.??

I have my information output for my relatives. Most people are free to follow me.

Note:
I made a comment on a few blogs who were on the descriptions. I had hoped to see what they know about them. Randy Seaver from Genea - Musings was kind enough to get on his white knight horse to respond to a lady in distress. He more or less said there was nothing to worry about as far as their doing the descriptions of our blog. I think what he said was that a good part of it in my case is rating Blogspot.com. Just as they did with rootsweb and ancestry.[ One belongs with the other].

My Genealogy Blog Traffic -- Website Description Added Their Address Next To Mine

Over New Years getting ready to post, I happened to see something that caught my attention. So I browsed the Internet to see what I could find under my code name "A rootdigger". It was an interesting search. I discovered several things.
I learned a few things.
- I still don't understand why some blogs stand out and others don't.
- I am not sure if I should even post their name, but then how would I inform you.

I found that I had been on Follow Friday at Apples blog on Dec. fourth. Had I been current, and a dutiful little follower, I would have seen it. Unless I just forgot. But I had not read much for a greater part of December. I usually did that on Fridays. But my days off were few and if I had one they were so scattered and had to be used to get ready for the holidays. I did get caught up in doing a similar to GeneaBloggers Christmas advent Calender posting at my Lewisville.com blogpot. That's my excuse and I am sticking to it.

- I certainly learned I must be current with reading.
- Once reading I thought I saw something that said I was tagged for a Blog approval award, but I asked, and no reply, so not sure, I left it. [ I'll look again later]. If you know anything about it please tell me.'
-This year I do plan to do my Follow on Friday. But that means I will have to do my reading sooner.

WEll what else did you see, you ask.
It is a bit of a puzzle to me. as to what I saw in Website description and what it means. Here is the address they used.
http://www.websitedescription.com/arootdigger.blogspot.com

First off, I should say that I have discovered that my blog is not the only one they have used online, you will have to see yourself, if they have used yours. I just don't remember which ones I saw. They use your blog website Ip address, and they claim to know your rank, your link or back link history. They list about ten or more of your blog links. Such as when we comment on each others blogs. Etc. They also say what my blog could be worth. but do not claim that to be, so if I were to sell it. My husband think they meant google blogspot and not necessarily mine.. However, everyone blog name is told different ranks and linking

They make reference to Alexa and Whois places for their information..
-I wanted to learn more about information put out reviewing my blog, wouldn't you yours?
-So far with the browsing, I have done, I haven't found the location of their source. Even at the Alexa or Whois sights I failed to find a route to my blog information. I suppose I could ask them.

It Gives google orange blog symbol first. It uses my address blogspot address right next to theirs. It says this":

Let's start with the basic details for this domain, which is located at 66.102.7.191 with blogspot.com hostname. The site is described as: A useful resource to visit. There are plenty of terms associated with this site . Alexa ranks it among 8 top sites in the world.
You can get an idea about the traffic by reading further. It has a pagerank 6 and 430,891 backlinks. It received approximately 765,082 daily pageviews and has a potential to earn over $2,695. A site like this, if grows to its maximum potential, might sell for $4,004,514 but that's of course is just an estimate and does not mean it would ever sell for that amount.

They must mean google blogspots gets the 765,082 daily page views intotal, because My two blogs counters last week each stated about a hundred views. No where near that total of 700,000.

Looking into Technorati last week, I noticed that our Genealogy subject title is not even listed. It has changed from what it was a few years back. It certainly puts your mind into perspective there. I suppose we are under what subject family for some of us and technology maybe for others?
-I Question whether I should claim my blog there, just to read the information. Have you put in claim in for yours. I did see some very well known genealogy blogs there.

Well anyway, you should see, if they have used your blog. It might be worth a look.
-If you know anything about this, would you tell me? I would like to understand a little more about that website.
I would like to see for myself or verify some of their information.

- This next year I need to learn more about the technology of blogging and traffic marketing. And apply some of it towards my blog.

Maybe there is a better way to keep track of ones blog than just random googling the blogosphere. I will have to figure this out.


Have fun with your search of your own blog.
--Will you let me know if the website description that used mine, have used yours too?

"Frohes Neues Jahr" - Happy New Year

"Frohes Neues Jahr"
Rebirth or change like the butterfly, it is a new year.

I hope it is happy in your new little world. We had rain yesterday, which meant the streets were so icy. when I left from work last night, I thought I would have to crawl up the hill to my car. My shoes just did not manage well on ice. Soon, I learned to lean forward with my weight [ one advantage of it] and do tippy toes kind of walk.
I just hope those who went out of town, got safely home.

Ahhhhh. After safely to the car, and some hard ice scraping off my windows, I was on my way home. Sitting in my nice big soft chair with my new purple Snuggie, I thankfully did some browsing, and thinking of future blogging, while munching on cheese, salami and crackers [no wine, Ill save that for here - whine. tee hee] Then off to bed missing the ball dropping and Happy New Year cheers.

From that old year browsing, to changes for the new year; I have decided to do a few more Postings on Meyer Descendants along with the ancestors. I wouldn't mind finding Meyer family along with Luhmann in America, whether it's Texas, Oregon or elsewhere.

So that is what happened in my corner of the world. Any thing fun in yours?