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Hey there, genea-lovers, it's Saturday Night - time for more Genealogy Fun!!
Your mission, if you decide to accept it, is to (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):
1) How old is your great-grandfather now, or how old would he be if he had lived? Divide this number by 4 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number."
2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ahnentafel (ancestor name list). Who is that person?
3) Tell us three facts about that person with the "roulette number."
4) Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook or Google Plus note or comment, or as a comment on this blog post.
5) If you do not have a person's name for your "roulette number" then spin the wheel again - pick a grandparent, a parent, a favorite aunt or cousin, or even your children!
Here's mine:
My great-grandfather, Henry Austin Carringer, was born in 1853, so if he were alive he would be 158 years old. Divided by four (doing this in my head) is 39.5, rounded off to #39.
Number 39 in my ancestor name list is Sophia Buck (1797-1882) - here is her entry:
39. Sophia Buck was born on 3 May 1797 in Holden, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States, daughter of Isaac Buck and Martha Phillips. She died on 6 Jan 1882 at the age of 84 in Westborough, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. Sophia Buck and Thomas J. Newton were married about 1832 in probably Worcester, Massachusetts, United States.
Three facts about Sophia Buck:
1) Sophia Buck was married three times - first to Lambert Brigham in before 22 February 1817 in Sterling MA ("Columbian Centinal" newspaper, Boston, Massachusetts, 22 February 1817, "Sophia Buck m. Lambert Brigham, formerly of Westborough, in Sterling."). Secondly, to Thomas J. Newton after 1830 and before 1832, place unknown (no record found to date). Thirdly, to Jonathan Stone on 7 July 1862 in Northborough MA. She was listed as Sophia (Buck) (Brigham) Newton, age 63, born in Holden MA, in this record ("Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910," online database, New England Historic Genealogical Society, American Ancestors (http://www.AmericanAncestors.org), citing original data at Massachusetts State Archives, Marriages: Volume 155, Page 224).
2) Sophia had at least four children - Augustus Brigham (1820-1903), Aurelius Brigham (1830-1878), Thomas J. Newton (1832-1915), and Sophia Newton (1834-1923).
3) Sophia Stone died 6 January 1882 in Westborough MA ("Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910," online database, New England Historic Genealogical Society, American Ancestors (http://www.AmericanAncestors.org), citing original data at Massachusetts State Archives, Deaths: Volume 339, Page 452). The extracted data from the record includes:
"Sophia (Buck) Stone, widow, age 84y 7m 3d, resident of Westborough MA, died of heart disease, born in Holden MA, parents Isaac and Martha (Phillips), father born in Southboro MA, no listing for mother."
Doing this exercise makes me wonder if I ever looked to see if there was a probate file for Sophia (Buck) (Brigham) (Newton) Stone in the Worcester County Probate Records.
I no longer blog, but I did do this. I came up with #34, Jan Simek (1800-1879) about whom I know very little. I have his baptism, his marriage and death dates. However, I don't know anything about my Slovak ancestors like we can know stories about say our colonial U.S. ancestors of the same time period. What did he do in the revolutions of 1848? Who knows? Are there records? Where are they? What language are they in (German, Hungarian or Slovak)? I think it's a miracle I know anything about my Slovak peasant ancestors--thankfully they were all Lutheran and the church records are remarkable. But they all remain two dimensional.
ReplyDeleteRandy! I live in the middle of the land where your ancestors roamed! Let me know if you need anything. There's an index to Worcester County Probate on Ancestry. For a while Ancestry was misspelling Worcester by adding an h, as in Worchester, just so you know. Not sure if they still do it.
ReplyDeleteI'm in the same boat as Martin - my roulette landed on #30, Kalinik Wakulicz, the father of my Ukranian immigrant great-grandmother. There was so much happening with boundaries changing in Eastern Europe, and family legend is that the Wakuliczs were fairly nomadic so I have a massive undertaking ahead of me to narrow down an area to find out if records even exist.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I get jealous when I read posts on genealogy tips blogs about "the end of the line." They're generally talking about lack of records for England around the 1500s, not about 1860s Poland.
My post is at http://mam-massouthernfamily.blogspot.com/2011/09/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-ahnentafel.html
ReplyDeleteThank you for tonight's challenge, Randy. My entry is here: http://goo.gl/Ca4V8. Doing this challenge made me realise that I must work at finding other descendants of this ancestor's many children.
ReplyDeleteHere is mine, funny that it turned out to be part of my Cutter family :D
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jayrays.com/Wandering_Roots/?p=221
My roulette "spin" can be found at
ReplyDeletehttp://pastlane.blogspot.com/2011/09/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-ahnentafel.html
Here is my post. The theme of my blog continues.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=8937408984948526826&postID=1191401846067716656
Great fun Randy~ thanks! Here's my post http://livinginthepastlane.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteThis was fun! Here is my blog post on this challenge: http://www.researchjournal.yourislandroutes.com/?p=2648
ReplyDeleteMy great grandfather John Strickler was born in 1826, so he would be 185 this year. This gives an ahnentafel number of 46.
ReplyDeleteNumber 47 in my Ahnentafel list is Moses Ashbury Pait, who was born in Illinois on 11 Dec 1832. On 18 Mar 1856 he married Netherlands-born Elizabeth Petronella Michael. He died in Missouri 11 Dec 1906.
And as a fourth fact which is an odd coincidence: Moses Pait is also my great grandfather.
This was a good one - I ended up with David Edward Tyler, once the coachman for Admiral Dewey.
ReplyDeletehttp://sassyjanegenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/09/randy-seavers-sngf-genealogy-roulette.html
This was fun. My post about my great-great grandmother Melissa Haight Thomas is here. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteJohn Henderson married Mary Huffman first born child of Henry and Elizabeth HIggins HUFFMAN later changed to HOFFMAN. Supposedly his parents were born in OHIO but were from Pa. They had nine children. He farmed and lost the farm due to bad business situation.
ReplyDeleteHave lots of information on him since I converse with his down line kin on an almost weekly basis.She lives in Waynesburg, PA.
My 'Ahnentafel Roulette' post can be found here. Thanks for another fun mission, Randy!
ReplyDeleteMy post is here: http://bit.ly/nTlP5g
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this challenge - thanks Randy!
Randy, my post for Sunday Night Genealogy Fun (I am a little behind) is at http://tinyurl.com/3vwc4yw. This was fun, but somewhat exasperating because I had to search to find 3 facts for #36 (Ensor / Enser / Encer Cole). I did confirm that he was a deserter in the War of 1812. One more for my genealogical skeleton closet!
ReplyDeleteWhich Great GrandFather?
ReplyDelete*GRIN*
A fun genealogy challenge. Here is a link to mine:
ReplyDeletehttp://historyof4families.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/genealogy-challenge-ahnentafel-roulette/
A fun genealogy challenge. Thank you for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteHere is my response:
http://historyof4families.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/genealogy-challenge-ahnentafel-roulette/