New Information I Didn't Know

Today, I received information from my 2nd cousin on my mother's side. She has been teaching genealogy to small groups in Sweden, and she has been looking at Louisa Ekquist's side of the family for us.

Following is part of what she wrote:

"Lovisa’s younger sister Augusta Vilhelmina who was born 1862 March 22 in Västra Skedvi is married to Per Gustaf Österberg born 1865 Febr 8 in Hed. They were married in 1887 Aug 20. Per Gustaf was a “smältare”. I have seen the translation “smelter” but i don’t know if it is ok. It is a type of smith. They emigrated to N. Amerika in Sept or Nov 1887. It is difficult to read the month and date." A year later, Louisa's parents also immigrated and came to live with the Ekquist family.

 

Once I entered this information into Ancestry.com, I discovered that Per and Augusta Osterberg arrived in New York on the 14 October 1887, so they married and left immediately through Norway to New York. 

I then discovered they went to Florence, Wisconsin where both their son Henry and daughter Nannette were born -- and then they moved to California by 1920.

The story of how Louisa's younger sister intercepted the letter from Andrew to Louisa telling her not to come to America yet is probably a true story. In 1880 Augusta would have been 18 and probably was tired of having little ones in the house. Sounds like something a younger sister would do. 

Here is information on Nannette, the daughter of Per and Augusta Osterberg. Notice that the information for a missing birth certificate was certified by her cousin, Emil Ekquist. 

I have emailed both Bruce and Ron Osterberg to find out if they know whether Per (or Peter) Gustav Osterberg was a relative of Axel Osterberg, husband of Aunt Ida. More of the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.

Also for your reading pleasure, here is a link to information about Homestead from Ralph Hoaglund's book:

http://genealogytrails.com/wis/florence/homesteadhoaglund2.htm

Celebrating Family History Month

I know, I know -- I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but the rest of us would like to also hear from YOU!

Here's another article, I'd like to share with you:

Five Tips For Celebrating Family History Month

•    Michael Leclerc's Genealogy News

•    Research Tips

01 Oct 2013

This is the favorite time of year for genealogists. October is Family History Month. It is a time dedicated to remembering our ancestors and celebrating them. Here are a few ideas for ways you can commemorate your own family history.

1. Write Up Some Family Stories

Time to take your research and start writing it up. Look at one of your ancestral families and start writing up the research you have conducted on them. One of the reasons we do genealogical research is to preserve their memories, but all too often we get tied up in the thrill of the chase, and never share what we find. Put together a biographical sketch of the family and post it on your blog, email it to family members, or print it out and mail it to them through the postal service.

2. Tell the Story Behind a Family Photograph

We all have piles of family photographs with no identification on them. Take some time this month to go through some of your pictures and label them. And don’t just put the names of the people in the picture. Tell the story behind it. Was it taken at a wedding? At a birthday party? A family vacation or outing? Were you doing something special at the time? Knowing those stories is just as important as knowing who is in the pictures.

3. Have a Family Get-together to Share Stories

You don’t have to have a huge, fancy party. But invite some of the aunts, uncles, and cousins to come over. It is still warm enough in many areas to have a barbecue. Have some time during the get-together to share some family stories. They can be stories of the past generations, or stories of the current ones.  And set your digital recorder to capture the stories, so you can share them with others who can’t attend.

4. Visit Cemeteries

Generations past used to visit the cemetery all the time. They would go and tend the graves. The entire community would sometimes be there. It was a festive occasion to honor family members who have passed. Nowadays we seem to be too rushed to take the time to visit. As genealogists, we may be the only ones there. But it is still important. Go and visit. Make sure the stones are still in their proper places and need no extra attention. Do some weeding. And bring the younger generation so you can not only share the experience, but share their stories.

5. Compose Part of Your Own Story

The time has come to tell your story. If you don’t tell it, who will? You are the only one who knows what you think, what you feel, how you experienced things. What do you want future generations to know about you? Sit down and start writing your life. You don’t have to write an entire novel in a month. Focus on a particular event or two in your life. Put down your memories. You don’t even have to share them right away, but knowing that you have got some of them written down ensures that someone should see them someday.

Commonwealth Cemetery Stones Need Work

The stones for our great-grandmother and great-grandfather need help. The following photos were taken in 2011 and I'm sure these stones are in worse shape today. They are located on the far end of the Commonwealth, Wisconsin, cemetery and if I remember right, they are on the right side of one of the paths perhaps 3 or 4 from the road going towards Homestead. The larger stone is to the left of the smaller stone, but they are next to each other.

The larger stone was for Margareta Elizabeth Tagstrom Lundwall, who died at the age of 52, wife of Andrew Lundwall. As you can tell by the stone, Andrew loved her deeply and was very particular that we would know more about her, and it was important to him that we know she was born in Sweden.

This stone needs the most work -- first the stone is on the edge of the base rather then in the middle where it belongs. Once it is secured in it's proper place and sealed to the base, the stone needs to be cleaned. This also is a problem because there is no water available at the cemetery. This is a small town cemetery. 

We have had wonderful results just with a brush, a plastic trowel, and water; but without water brought to the cemetery, there is no way to clean it.  

By the time Andrew died at the age of 79, he had been a widow for 27 years. During this time, he lived with or near his sons in the Iron River area.

If anyone in Michigan would like to take a trip to the Commonwealth Cemetery to see what can be done, fix and clean the stones, or if anyone knows who we can contact to have the stones cleaned and the larger stone fixed, please let me know who I can contact. There was a phone number listed on the shed in the middle of the cemetery, but when I tried calling, I wasn't able to get in touch with anyone.

It would be a shame to just let the stones continue to deteriorate. The larger stone may have already fallen.

Materials Needed For Cleaning a Gravestone

• Soft-bristle brush: Metallic brushes are entirely too harsh, and they also leave particles on the surface of the stone that can rust.
• Small, soft, slanted paintbrush: To clean debris and critters out of lettering or carvings.
• At least one large sponge, firm toothbrushes
• Water: A good water supply, a hose connection, or buckets of water. You may also want to bring a small spray bottle of water for gently cleaning dirt and debris from the stone. The spray bottle, should contain only water and not detergent or chemicals of any kind that would damage and further erode the stone's material. You might want to use Photo Flo, which is made by Kodak and used in photo developing. Mix one capfull per gallon of water. Wash stone with solution, then rinse stone with clean water. Use brush.
• Towel or old rags: used to kneel on or clean polished granite stones. Launder the towels first, but do NOT use fabric softener. The softener will affect their ability to absorb liquids as well as cutting down on the "magnetism" for dirt and dust.
• Hand cleaner: Bring along a sample size of antibacterial waterless hand cleaners or wipes.
• Cutting Tool: Hand-held grass clippers, scissors or a retractable razor knife for trimming grass and/or weeds close to the stones. DO NOT use weed-whacker type trimmers as these can scar the stones. For site clearing/cleaning, a pair of pruning shears or hedge clippers is also helpful for brush that is too thick to rip out or cut with grass clippers, but not thick enough to bother with a chain saw.
• Pencil and Notepad: to record information about the stone or cemetery location.

The larger stone reads as follows, (unfortunately I don't remember what else is on the stone):

In Memory of

Margreta E.

Wife of

Andrew Lundwall

Born in Sweden

Born Apr 30, 1848

Died Oct 9, 1900

LUNDWALL 

Krans Cousin Luncheon

On the 26th of September, some of the Krans' cousins got together at the home of Rita Jarvis near Green Bay. Unfortunately, we were unable to be there -- would have been so nice to see everybody in person. The photo was sent by Loraine.

Standing l-r: Nancy & Jack Marshall, Marilyn Watson, Jim Jarvis, Charlotte Waldschmidt, Dale Krans, Arvid Carlson, Rita Jarvis
Front: Kathy Christianson, Marlene and Dale Miller, Loraine Larson, Gayle Trible, and Karen Andrusco 

Nancy is the daughter of Gustav; Marilyn, Loraine, Gayle and Karen are the daughters of Robert; Charlotte and Rita are the daughters of Roy; Marlene is the daughter of Edward; Kathy and Dale are the offspring of Vernon.

A Special Request to Any Family Member

I started Time Will Tell as a way to document as much of our family history as I could.  Unfortunately, the history has been somewhat one-sided since most of it has been from my perspective. I am asking for your contributions.

Think about the things we’ve discovered that most of us didn’t know – how special the story of Oscar’s violin and what happened to it has been. Most of us had no idea that Oscar played the violin, or that Oscar and Teckla met when they played instruments at dances. The only thing I remember was when Roger and I were staying with Grandma one summer in Iron Mountain and Grandma got a far-away look in her eyes as she told us that Grandpa’s favorite song was “Jimmy Crack Corn” (which has many interpretations, although it’s basically a slave song – I always thought it was a drinking song about bootleg liquor. It’s possible that he quite simply liked to play it on his violin.)   

I also know that most of you probably have no idea of where or how to even begin.Today I came across an article entitled “Items to consider in writing your Family History.” I also found an outline of what Aunt Nan was going to write (and never did.)

Ron Osterberg has already agreed to write short stories for us about his side of the (Aunt Ida) Osterberg part of the Ekquist family. We’d love to hear more from you too.

I am hoping for as much family history as possible – not from just the Lundwall cousins, but from any and all extended family members. (Do any of you remember when the Lundwalls tried Round-Robin letters -- where somebody started, and each family's news was added to it and sent on to the next in line?) This might include stories about:

Childhood health, accidents, playmates, trips, brothers and sisters, unusual happenings, visitors, memories of other relatives, what influenced your major decisions in life.

Schools attended, teachers, who or what influenced you the most, special activities, achievements, funny things that happened.

What your parents did for a living. What you do/did for a living.

Sports you’ve enjoyed (I remember my dad sitting at the kitchen table listening to boxing on the radio, and we tiptoed around him so he didn’t miss a thing. Luckily, I married a man who didn't enjoy listening to the fights! One of my daughter's at age 11 decided she wanted to be Joe Namath.)

Courtship, where you met, proposal, wedding parties, honeymoon, meeting your inlaws. Married life, settling down, your new home, differences in family cultures, joys and sorrows. Hardships. Humorous incidents. Frightening experiences.

What you enjoy doing for recreation. Hobbies, travels, camping. Special celebrations you remember. How you celebrate holidays, birthdays, etc. What you do for pure enjoyment.

Family members, what you remember of often-told family stories, or how a relative inspired you. (We no longer have Uncle Bill or Uncle Dave to tell us stories; too bad we didn't start this a long time ago!)

This isn't a test or a major project; nobody will be graded. Share whatever is interesting and meaningful to you. Any story that does not embarrass or hurt others is acceptable. Without your input, our family history will not be complete. We are all getting older, please do it now.  

If it helps, think of it as a letter written to your family..... Family letters have always been treasured -- I remember when my parents went to Sweden, they were given letters received in Sweden from my mother's parents here in the United States saved for many years.  Aunt Nancy saved letters from everybody, and many of these survive today.

Sending hugs to all, as well as thank you for being a special part of our family, a part of our history!

Listing of our parent's Ekquist cousins

Ron Osterberg has been going through the postings, and he wrote me that he keeps getting lost about who was who.

In all my assorted collection of papers, I found a listing of the Ekquist cousins and scanned both sides of the page for him. Thought it might be nice for others to have a listing if they too wanted to try to keep the Ekquist families straight.  

Nancy Roberg put these together when she hosted the first Ekquist cousins reunion and then added dates as she knew them. I also went through and added the dates that I know. 

In order to add these pages, I had to save them as photos.

The list starts with Ellen's family (Ellen was the eldest sister) and ends with Teckla's family (Teckla was the youngest.) The list is in order from oldest to the youngest. 

Long Lost Relatives

Meet Ron Osterberg who lives in Connecticut. He is our second cousin and he's quite a writer and he writes from his heart!

      http://www.bhosterberg.com/Ron/

If you want to contact Ron, there is a place to do that as well. Enjoy! Below is how Ron and I connected just a few short days ago.

A while ago, I said I was doing some genealogy work on my mother's side of the family. I wasn't having much luck!

My brother, Doug, had seen a tv show about DNA testing few years ago, and he said he would really like to do it -- but it was very expensive. Then somehow I discovered that 23 and Me was doing genetic testing for $99, and that there was more information available for males in a family than for females. I sent Doug the information and told him that if he was still interested, I would pay for half. I was hoping it might lead to relatives of my mother's grandmother on her mother's side as we knew so very little about her parents. All we knew about her was that she had my grandmother, and immigrated from Sweden. Her husband remarried 3 years later -- and my great-grandmother disappeared. My great-grandfather's name was Nels Nelson from Sweden (and that's all we knew -- any idea of how many Nels Nelsons there were in Sweden -- it's like how many Jones families are in America!)

Since then, I've connected with two of my mother's father's relatives in Sweden and they've been sending me information and doing research for me, verifying what I've got right and what I've got wrong.

Then I connected with a granddaughter of my maternal grandmother's half-brother, and she gave me what little information she had and I shared photos of her grandfather that I had in my possession and told her what I knew. And nothing happened for months.

In the middle of last week, somebody copied one of the Nelson photos in that family and I recognized the name as the husband of another member of the Nelson family. I sent a message off and was informed that he would send the information on to his wife by email. To make a long story short, Debbie, who is the daughter of a first cousin once removed, contacted me and we exchanged information -- her dad was a little skeptical because he didn't remember me. This changed when I sent them a photo of his father, my mother, and him; along with everything I knew about my maternal grandmother's family. Her dad and her mother went to the Negaunee cemetery and collected dates off of the stones. So more of the family information came in.

Then another family tree came up with information about Grandma's sister Aunt Ida's family, but our Great-Grandparent's name was spelled Aquist instead of Ekquist. I sent her a message that if she was having problems finding information, that was why.

Doug sent me information last week about relatives that 23 and Me said were second cousins. Turns out one of them was Ron Osterberg, the grandson of Aunt Ida Osterberg; and the other was Dale, the grandson of Roy Krans, and the son of Rita.

The Krans relatives are getting together for lunch tomorrow in Green Bay -- but it's 4-1/2 hours one way and I don't have anyone to ride along with me, so unfortunately I won't be there. I have found more information in a book written about Krans relatives in a book about Aurora, and I will be sharing some of this with you soon.

Information has started to explode from all sides of my large wonderful extended family. Information is coming at me so quickly from all directions. it's difficult keeping it all straight and trying to make sense of it all.

And all this leads up to -- I would like to introduce you to Ron Osterberg who lives in Connecticut. He is our second cousin and he's quite a writer and he writes from his heart!

      http://www.bhosterberg.com/Ron/

If you want to contact Ron, there is a place to do that as well. Enjoy!