Genealogy Jottings

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A couple of years a group of us started the Germanic Genealogical Society of Colorado, and we meet once a month at the Denver Public Library. Oftentimes, genealogy groups do not meet over the summer, and we discussed taking a hiatus, too. But instead, we decided to take a field trip together. One day this week we picked up box lunches at a local German deli and then met in a nearby park to eat. Afterwards, several of the group went on to a German bakery to get dessert. Conversations ranged from trading research tips to learning about several members’ plans for traveling to Germany later in the year. I think we all enjoyed socializing with our fellow German researchers on a beautiful sunny afternoon in Colorado.

This week we are in a transition between internet service providers. Although I can get online, our wireless service is slow. I am remembering dial-up all too well! So instead of sitting impatiently at the computer waiting for pages to load, I decided to clean up the office space instead. All those stray pieces of handwritten notes and all those torn out magazine articles are being filed or digitized. I made lists of websites to visit and books to read. When I have our high speed line back, I will be able to work more efficiently in a less cluttered office. I can hardly wait!

This week I ordered from the National Archives my 8th land entry file for one of our direct ancestors.  Our family really liked that free or cheap land! In fact, great-aunt Signe told me that her parents and grandparents left Norway in the early 20th century because they could get free land in “Amerika”. They homesteaded in Montana, and Tony’s Norwegian family homesteaded in North Dakota, perhaps for the same reason. The 1893 file for his great-grandfather, Hans Jorgensen, is the one I ordered this week. I still have a couple to go for another of Tony’s great-grandparents, and I will order those when I do other research on that line. Often these files contain naturalization information that is otherwise hard to find. The files themselves are easy enough to locate these days. The Bureau of Land Management website has the lists of land patentees with all the pertinent information needed to order the files from the National Archives.

Visiting the port city of New Orleans last week has inspired me to collect all the ship passenger lists for our ancestors who came from Norway. Some are easier to find than others. Ole Bentsen’s ship and arrival date were in his homestead file. His wife Sofie popped up on the Ancestry.com index. Tony found the Hjelmstad clan information on the Norway Heritage website. Now I am looking for the tougher ones–my great-great grandparents Nick and Karen Bentsen and Tony’s great-grandparents, Syver Nelson, Margit Pedersdatter Vareberg, and the Thore Hvalstads. So far, we have found that most arrived through the port of Boston although Sofie and Riborg Bentsen sailed to Quebec and entered the U.S. through Canada. The book I am reading, They Came In Ships by John Coletta, is giving me some good guidance for finding these records.

We have been visiting New Orleans while Tony attends a conference. Not much genealogical research going on here! But for the hours while he is in class, I brought along John Coletta’s book They Came in Ships to read. I have been meaning to read it for a long time, and this is the week I will finally have time to do it. Tony’s family actually did arrive in the port of New Orleans from Germany. So in some ways we are walking in their footsteps this week. I will bet though, that they did not party on Bourbon Street while they were here.

We just learned that one of Tony’s relatives founded the town of Mohall, North Dakota. The town’s name is derived from the name of its founder, Martin Olson (M. O.) Hall. Mr. Hall was a first cousin of Tony’s great-grandmother, Beate Walstad. Both M.O. and Beate were grandchildren of Anders Nilsen and Berte Torkildsdatter of the Bjerke Farm in Norway’s Ringsaker District, and both were born in Norway. Their families later immigrated to the U.S. Mr. Hall (1852-1925) had great energy and ambition and trained in the law. He founded Mohall about 1901 when he learned that excellent farmland in western North Dakota was opening to homesteaders. He recruited a large number of his relatives who were land-hungry to file claims adjoining the new town he envisioned. He even went to Norway and tried to recruit some relatives there, but he found no takers. The town grew slowly, and M.O. himself was the first postmaster, banker, storekeeper, and newspaper editor. Mohall eventually became the county seat of Renville County, North Dakota.

For several years now the Colorado Genealogical Society (CGS) has worked with the Denver Public Library (DPL) to index and publish Denver records held at the library. We who volunteer for these projects often work from home. My current project is proofing transcriptions of 20th-century Denver marriage license applications, and I put in several hours a month. It is a solitary job. Thanks to the wonderful staff in the Western History and Genealogy department, though, today we genealogists had the opportunity to enjoy breakfast and meet with other volunteers and DPL staff. Nearly 100 of us attended and enjoyed their homemade Spring Fling breakfast. Thanks DPL! A great place to volunteer!

A giant in the genealogy world, Colorado’s own Birdie Holsclaw, passed away yesterday after a year-long illness. She was the second Certified Genealogist ever in Colorado, and she knew so much! I served on the Board of the Colorado Genealogical Society for many years with Birdie.  She was highly interested in technology and even back then was the only one at our Board meetings with a Palm Pilot. She convinced me to begin using the complex Master Genealogist software after I had used Family Treemaker for many years. In many ways she was the Colorado Genealogical Society, and we have all missed her bright face over the past year. RIP, Birdie.

This week I attended the monthly meeting of the relatively new Germanic Genealogy Society of Colorado (GGSC). This group organized itself about a year and a half ago and meets at the Denver Public Library. Many members also belong to the local chapter of Palatines to America. For many years, since the World Wars, people have done their German research almost covertly, but not any more. As memories of World War II fade, people with German ancestry feel more comfortable publicizing their heritage and are organizing into clubs like Denver’s GGSC. At our house, Tony is half German so we have a lot of German research we could do. A club like the GGSC is a good resource for me as we begin researching his German forebears. And I have a rumor of a German ancestor, too–the elusive Catherine who gave birth to my great-grandmother, Anna Petronella Sherman, was said to have been from Germany.

“Until you look, you don’t know what you’ll find.” I first heard this piece of advice from Pat Hatcher several years ago, and since then it has served me well. Most recently, I followed it and ordered the homestead file for my great-grandfather, Ole Bentsen, who settled in northeastern Montana. The National Archives charges $40 for a homestead file, so they are not cheap. I hesitated to order this one because I already knew where and when my ancestor had homesteaded. I finally decided to spend the money and get the file anyway just to be thorough in my research. I was glad I did! In addition to all the homestead information, the file contained Ole’s naturalization papers! This saved me hours of looking through court records and passenger lists for this information. Moral of the story: Always look; you may be surprised at what you find.