Sometimes you can go back a ways. The Kellogg family line has been traced back for many generations.
Tag: genealogy research
Posts about researching family history
A common source of information for family research is newspapers. There are any number of things that can be published in the paper that might provide information about a person. Obituaries, wedding and anniversary announcements are the most common items found. The social pages often had items on travels, jobs, colleges, and reunions. Even the local police reports may have interesting tidbits!
When you are researching your family history, learning where they lived helps you find out more information about them. It’s even better when you can see who their neighbors were and where that store they owned sat.
We can see on this map that the hotel is in section two, lot ten. The post office is across the square in section five, lot eighteen.
In a few posts, I have been discussing some of the challenges of identifying people when you are doing genealogical research. I covered immigration and census records in this post. I talked about some of the difficulties encountered in translation and working with older documents in this post.
Today, I am going to look at some naming conventions that can make it difficult to determine exactly who you are looking at.
Sometimes the challenge in genealogy is sorting out language differences, both in translation and in writing styles. In his post about the Bruegenhemke place, Walt mentioned high and low German. We will look at that and then look at writing patterns.
Dialects
Low German, High German
German language has several dialects, just like many other languages. High German is the official written language of Germany. It is based on the spoken languages of the highlands of southern Germany and is spoken in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Low German is based in old Saxon language and is not spoken much these days except in certain areas in northern Germany. It does not have an extensive amount of literature like high German does.
When you are researching family history, you often find that names have changed over the years. It can make the search for your family’s history challenging.
There are a number of reasons a name might change – immigration, transcription errors, translation, marriage, a desire to fit in the local community or a desire to hide from something in the past.
In our family history, we have a few names that have changed over time – most notably Hoel. Several of Walt’s ancestors spelled it Hole. It seems to have changed back and forth a couple of times, and it also depends on which document you are looking at for a few family members. Walt’s great-grandfather was listed as John Swisher Hole. His son, Walt’s grandfather, was William Henry Hoel.
As you may know, Michelle and I somehow got appointed as the keepers of family history, lore, and photographs in my family. I’m pretty sure the vote took place when I wasn’t present…