Family Stories – Page 2 – GenealogyAtHeart.com

A Foreshadowing of Creepy October

Fall is just around the corner and I’ll be posting my October blogs about the weird, unexplainable happenings that occurred while I researched over the past year soon. I typically write them down as they happen and save them to present in October. I’ve got my four done so what happened to me this week is too good to wait for a whole ‘nother year so here goes. . .

On Thursday I attended a local genealogy club event at a library. We were supposed to be researching early residents of the town for a timeline poster the library was making. This was a continuation of what we had begun the previous month.

It was pouring and cold. Yes, I know most places are under a heat dome but we were not. It was in the 60s and I don’t do cold. I considered not going but I had promised to be there so I donned my raincoat and drove off through flooded streets.

Luckily, there were two parking spaces available close to the library door. I took one and a male patron took the other. I sat for a moment debating if I should just pull my hood up or wrestle with the umbrella. It was lightning so I opted to just make a run for it as it wasn’t more than a few steps. The man chose the umbrella and was struggling to get it open without getting soaked.

I stood in the vestibule shaking off my raincoat when he approached but he was carrying items in one hand and the umbrella was in the other so he couldn’t open the door. I noticed and held it open. After some pleasantries, we went on our separate ways.

I happened to be the first to arrive so I was talking with one of the librarians about the project. She said if anyone came who needed genealogical help we’d do that first. I love helping people with their brick walls so this sounded great to me!

Moments later a woman came in with a question; how accurate are death records? She had found some inconsistencies. We talked about, how family members are often distraught by the loss of a loved one, and provide incorrect or incomplete records. I gave an example of my Maria Duer Kuhn who was born in Ohio but her son had stated she was born in Germany on her death certificate. Nope, that would be his dad. Dad had been active in the immigrant community so Maria had an obituary in both the English and local German newspapers. Her son was just confused at the time of her death.

Next, the umbrella man arrived; those papers he had been carrying were death certificates for two of his Hull ancestors and he was stymied by the oldest which stated that the deceased had been born in Virginia. He could find no records in Virginia for this man.

I pointed out that the northwest territory had once been assigned to Virginia and that at the time of the man’s birth, the late 1700s, it was possible that the named location was somewhere else but under that jurisdiction. Seriously, once upon a time, in what is now Indiana, deeds were to be presented to Williamsburg, Virginia. Crazy, huh?!

I asked him if he had looked at online family trees for clues, warning him about unsourced or poorly sourced trees. He hadn’t. I brought up Ancestry but my personal version since the library edition that is available doesn’t give patrons the option to search public member trees.

I knew I had a few Hulls in my tree as my Revolutionary War patriot, John Duer’s sister married a Hull. I figured a lot of people would have the Hulls in their tree as it sounds to me like a common name.

Imagine my surprise when I looked at public trees and discovered my tree contained the information he needed.

Umm, yes, we were distant cousins. I then brought up FamilySearch.org so he could see the will which named parents and siblings. I’ve complained about that will for YEARS as my John’s will omit his deceased children and I wished that he had done the same as his brother-in-law – named everyone.

I then showed him I’d taken the Duers back to Merry Ole England and that he was eligible for several lineage societies. He had no idea and needed time to process this. Nothing like showing up in a downpour with two documents and leaving in the sunshine with hundreds more already nicely packaged for you.

But that’s not all. I decided to stop at another library on my way home to look at a book that the deceased author’s daughter had emailed me about that might be of help for a cemetery project I’m working on with a local high school. I went directly to the librarian and told him I didn’t have the name of the book but knew the author and publisher’s date. He found it for me in seconds. Yes, it had EXACTLY what I was looking for. Pleased, I put the book on the cart to be refiled. Then I stopped at the cemetery but no one was in the office. Sigh.

I didn’t check my email until I got home but I could hear it pinging. Sure enough, an email, related to what I had just accomplished.

It was sent by the author’s daughter while I was in the library. She had pulled out the copy she owned and sent me a list of former residents I could use in the cemetery tour. While reading the email I got a call from a friend and fellow member of our local genealogy society. A few minutes after I left the library she had arrived with the intent on looking at the same book as she had read in the newspaper that a barn was being moved from a neighboring county to our county to use for horses during the fair. The barn was coming from one of her great uncle’s farms. That family had lived in our county but relocated to a neighboring county in the 1800s. She remembered while reading the article she had intended to confirm a burial date on the now unreadable stone for this several times great aunt buried in our county.

When she arrived at the library she couldn’t find the book on the shelf so she went to the librarian and he told her Lori Samuelson had just used it. They went to the cart and there it was, right where I left it to be reshelved. See, they know me well in this library and I always return the items to the cart for reshelving as that is their policy.

Moral of the story – genealogical connections are integral and coincidences are icing on the cake. Were my Duer ancestors and the local deceased author giving us a nudge? Possibly though I can’t prove that. Sometimes we just need to appreciate the findings, however, they occurred.

Combining Genealogy With a High School Reunion

In late July, graduates of my husband’s now-closed high school held their 50^th reunion. Only about 60 of the 352 graduates attended. Some didn’t care to attend, others probably didn’t have the time or funds to make the pilgrimage home. The remainder had no choice; about 18% of their classmates are deceased.

I heard a lot of stories about those missing members. A memorial had been created for them – a 1970-style school desk in the corner of the Pavilion, the same location where Senior Prom had been held. Upon the tabletop were listed the names, birth, and death dates of the individuals. The first died barely two months after graduating and the most recent, three months ago. There was an increase in deaths between 2020-2022. Was it aging or the pandemic?

This reunion made me aware of the folly of youth. At 17, when I danced the night away in that very same room, I hadn’t thought much of the prom’s theme – Stairway to Heaven. I hadn’t even remembered that was the theme until my husband’s close friend since kindergarten mentioned it. This was the same friend who had introduced me to what would become my husband. It was the same song that just happened to play on the radio when hubby and I were meeting at a city cemetery in Florida to select our grave sites. We’ve since sold those back to the city and are now in the process of deciding AGAIN where our final resting place will be.

So, being frugal (you can insert cheap in here, no worries on my part!) and time conscious, I decided we would visit cemeteries of deceased family members during our trip to our old hometown which is now a two-and-a-half-hour drive from our new city. I was thinking we might want to be interred there eventually and could save if we combined trips. We hadn’t visited some of the gravesites in over 20 years and in other cases, have never been. This seemed like a good time to check them out.

When I was thinking about the reunion I wasn’t thinking at all about those that weren’t going to be attending because they had passed away. I guess I was still thinking as we did at 17; aging and death would happen but not any time soon. In those days anyone over 30 was over the hill and we were far from that. Funny how fast time passes. Appropriate that we sometimes get a jolt of reality during a regular humdrum day.

I planned to visit seven cemeteries during this two-day trip which would include five hours plus of driving and four hours for the big party. I also wanted to drive by our old haunts, like our childhood homes, schools, friends’ homes, and places that held special memories – our first date, our favorite beach, and so on.

They say you can’t go home again. That’s not true; you can and you should. Does it look the same? Definitely not. Without the people you knew, like Mrs. Chellich who made the best grape jelly every summer, or Vera Shobach, who owned the corner store, the visit wouldn’t be the same as returning to an earlier part of your lifetime. Life goes on and it is worth the travel to your origin, to remember, reflect, and both laugh and cry.

Did I record any of the conversations that were held during the reunion? Nope. I was a guest. I heard apologies, regrets, and lots of memories of good times. I hope the attendees return home and someday write or record their memoirs.

Perhaps they’ll change their minds in ten years but it sure sounded like many had decided this would be their last reunion, which could explain the depths of some of the conversations that occurred. Well, at least at the table where we sat that I have labeled the Nerd Table, where we talked about philosophy and what colleges give seniors free classes online. The jocks seemed to still be interested in their past glory days and who got drafted for what major league team today. The ladies seemed to be comfortable with their old friends; most came alone, kicked off their shoes, and danced together as they once did. There was also the smoker group that convened outside. I guess some things never change!

This was the first high school reunion event I ever attended. None of my schools are in existence today. I left for Florida two weeks before my senior year in high school was going to begin in Indiana as my mom had been transferred. I graduated early by attending a school that no longer exists in St. Petersburg, Florida; it’s become a condo. My Indiana high school was leveled in 2014. It was tough to see that beautiful building gone.

Luckily, my husband’s former elementary school is now an art antique mall so we were able to visit. I took pics of him standing in the doorway of every one of his classrooms. On the main floor behind the cash register are three class photos hanging on the wall and he is in every picture. One of the vendors had attended the school a few years before my husband so they reminisced about the teachers, principal, and students. It was a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with the greater community who had experienced a shared past.

Friends – Associates – Neighbors enrich our family stories. Make the most out of your upcoming reunions to reach out and gain new perspectives on your past events.

Way Down Upon the White River…

Earlier this month, hubby and I joined other Society of Indiana Pioneers (SIP) at an Intergenerational Day at Mounds Park, Anderson, Indiana.

We had never been to the park and after a short hike, the ranger explained research findings about the constructed mounds on the premises. We then trekked back to the nature center and had an informative hands-on wildlife experience with reptiles and amphibians. After a box lunch, pioneer activities were scheduled – butter churning, broom making, weaving, flint knapping, candle making, archery, and visiting a historic home. We also observed volunteers who were making a dugout canoe for a museum exhibit.

SIP’s program is helpful in getting a younger generation interested in history.

It wasn’t just the kids who were excited nor was intergenerational just for attendees. My husband’s Hoosier Pioneer was Jacob Troxell, born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on 2 October 1797. By 1810, he had emigrated with his parents to Bear Creek near Miamisburg, Montgomery, Ohio. There he married first Catherine Ranck/Raunk on 29 December 1819.

By 1822 Jacob, Catherine, and their first of eight children, Elizabeth “Betsy” moved to the then-new state of Indiana. They settled in Harrison Township, Fayette County, one mile north of Waterloo.

Jacob first farmed his property that was adjacent to the White River. The growing community had a need and he met it by erecting a saw and grist mill. Later he opened a dry goods business and became a County Commissioner.

After Catherine’s death, he married widow Mary Jane Carlton Port. The couple had one daughter.

Jacob died on 6 April 1885 in Fayette and is buried in Robinson Chapel Cemetery there.

Of my to-do plans is to visit where Jacob lived. Between speaking engagements, renovating our landscaping with native plants, and volunteering, it’s not likely we’ll get to visit this summer. The SIP program, however, enabled my husband to experience the White River for the first time. In this preserved park setting, it likely looks much as it did when his 3rd great-grandfather came in the 1820s. Wow, 200 years ago. Five generations ago. Now that’s really intergenerational!

Croatian Family Stories – An Update

Lori Samuelson and Dr. Nikolina Antonić in front of Turopolje Manor

Today’s blog is the last in my Croatian series and it adds to the family stories I have previously written about. My maternal grandmother, Mary Koss, was a dramatic storyteller. As a child, I loved her tales of the old country. As I aged, I wondered about the content and began researching for facts. Boots on the ground enabled me to check out the truth in ways I could never do online.

The picture above is of a typical Croatian nobleman house from the beginning of the 19th century. This one was built in 1806. The family business was housed on the first floor with the family living on the second floor. The homes typically were furnished with artwork, porcelain collections, a stove for heating, and a piano. We always had a piano which my mother hated taking lessons, porcelain knickknacks, and art. I never thought of my family as owning those items in the old country as nothing was brought with them to the U.S. The families entertained often and a sign noted that guests of this home, constructed by Petar Modić, were the Kusević and Pogledić families. Those names were of interest to me as my grandparents had friends in the U.S. with those surnames and I knew they had been from nearby villages in Croatia. And yes, my grandparents entertained often. I had no idea, that all these families had been considered noblemen nor that the families had been acquainted for more than a hundred years before their emigration. I was also surprised to learn how much land those titled people, known as PL, owned. Dr. Antonić’s dissertation was on land deeds from the 1200s in the area so our next visit was to the castle my grandmother recalled our family protecting.

Due to earthquake damage, we couldn’t get up close to Castle Turopolje. I was astounded to discover how close the site was to my ancestor’s villages. Running downhill from their homes through the woods would not have taken more than ten minutes. Like in my grandmother’s story, the castle had a moat which you can see is now weed-filled. This castle is a replica, built in the 1900s, of the one that stood in the same location where my relatives defended against the Turks. You can read my blog about the original event here.

Another surprise was the discovery that not only my Kos line but my Grdenić line was also titled PL. How I missed that information as a kid is beyond me! Unfortunately, the volume with the Kos information was missing from the Croatian National Archive and I’m awaiting a copy from another organization.

My grandmother’s paternal side, the Kos family, originated in Dubranec. You can see the forest area where they were granted privilege by the king to hunt for their bravery in defending the castle. Just around the bend, the village of 99 homes begins.

Mary Koss’ Birthplace in Dubranec, Croatia. Photo by Google Maps

I’m using a Google Maps photo of my maternal side’s ancestral home, built before 1861 as noted in that census. For privacy reasons, I am not showing a current photo as the house has had some changes. I had no family pictures of it and in my mind, I had always thought it would have been a wooden structure, much like Turopolje Manor. I have no idea when the stucco was added over the original wood but many homes began that custom by the mid-1800s. The residences to the right and left had been bricked. My grandmother had her home in Gary, Indiana bricked during the Depression; perhaps she did that because the neighbors had done so in Croatia. All three homes, along with a parking lot and a medical facility, were once the Kos family farm. The family-owned much more land and as the family grew over the years, lots became subdivided to include more dwellings. This I discovered at the Croatian State Archives. My family always had a kitchen garden when I was growing up so I wasn’t surprised to see that there was space for one. My grandmother had mentioned a garden, too. The building is no longer in the family. It had been turned into a tavern but the owner recently died so we could not go inside to visit. There are no Kos’ left in Dubranec according to the neighbor on the left side and Mr. Hrvoj, a distant cousin of mine, who happened to walk down the street.

Around several more turns up the mountain, we found ourselves in my maternal great-grandmother’s ancestral home, the Grdenić’s. The village is small and consists of a few farms. It looks as I thought a village from the 1800s would:

Anna Grdenić’s Ancestral Home, Jerebic, Croatia

There are no Grdenić’s left in Jerebic according to the farmer who came out to see who was visiting. It is a working farm with roosters walking freely. Although the house now has electricity, running water, and plumbing, it did not when my great-grandmother lived there. The well is no longer used but I can imagine my two times great grandmother drawing water from it:

Lori Samuelson in Front of the Grdenić Family Well

My grandmother’s middle name was Violet and I was surprised to see all the wild violets that grew around the house.

Records in the archive stated that the family was known for their fine vineyard. I should have known the family grew grapes as I have blogged about their winemaking during Prohibition yet I never thought about that custom coming with them to the new country. I have the family recipes and one of my kids still follows them. Sometimes the hints are right in front of us yet we fail to recognize them. My husband and I laughed when we heard about the vineyards as we have always had a grape arbor and we had just planted grapes a few days before we left for Croatia.

Next, we went back down the mountain to Dubranec to visit Our Lady of the Snows Roman Catholic Church which is a 5-minute walk from my Kos’ family home:

The Earthquake Damaged Church of Our Lady of the Snows, Dubranec, Croatia

The church was badly damaged in the 2020 earthquake and is off-limits. The priest lives in the village but we were unable to locate him. Here is my original family legend about Our Lady of the Snows.

I was hoping to find gravestones for the missing vital information that former leader Josip Tito had destroyed but unfortunately, the cemetery only contains newer graves. Dr. Antonić explained that the Croatian custom is to pay annually for the grave upkeep and if payment is not made, after some time, the remains are removed and stored in a combined gravesite. I couldn’t find that location and will have to contact the parish priest for more details.

Our Lady of the Snows Roman Catholic Church Cemetery, Dubranec, Croatia

The former article mentioned a mysterious pilgrimage site that was identified by genealogist Lidija Sambunjak. We were on our way to Marija Bistrica:

My great-grandmother Anna Grdenić Koss, according to my Great Aunt Barbara, went on a pilgrimage to this site. I had a postcard that was written to my mother when my Aunt Anne Marie and Aunt Barbara visited Croatia in the 1980s. Unfortunately, the name of the site wasn’t written on the postcard. I blogged about solving the mystery recently. I believe Anna made the pilgrimage after losing her first two children at birth. I have records for one of the two, one may have been a miscarriage. I suspect Anna was praying for a child to survive and that occurred after the pilgrimage with my grandmother, Mary. Anna would go on to have three more children, Joseph and Barbara, who survived to adulthood, and Dorothea, who I can find no record of that died as a child. The distance to this church from the villages is an hour by car over steep mountain roads. I know that my female ancestors were strong women but this journey would not have been easy. We did see pilgrims hiking to the church and it reminded me that once, long ago, Anna was one of them. Like most of Croatia due to the earthquake, the church is under construction but we were able to go inside.

Boots on the ground research enabled me to walk in my ancestor’s footsteps. It was an emotional journey that added richness to the family stories that were told to me as a child. I am fortunate to have connected with such knowledgeable women in Croatia who helped me gain insight into my family’s history. This was a trip of a lifetime that I will carry with me forever.

Cemetery Caper

Back in November, I visited a local cemetery to pay my respects to my husband’s Great Half Uncle, William O. Johnson. When we arrived we couldn’t get into the mausoleum as the door was locked. There was no sign on the door that provided the hours it was open.

There was no cemetery office and we were the only ones in the cemetery so we went home, disappointed. I immediately went online to Findagrave.com to discover how I could connect with a cemetery trustee.

What I found was a transcription from Dorothy A. Ditmars History of DeKalb County Cemeteries (1924) that states “…The present manager of this cemetery is Mr. L. Gengler, an attornery (sic) of Garrett, Indiana).”

The next paragraph transcribes a “printed page (source unknown)” that John Martin Smith had in his private files that stated, “Lots are mowed by Oliver Maurer, who has been employed as caretaker since 1954.”

I looked for another site that contained more recent info and found that every other site had copied the same information. Luckily, a newspaper article appeared in the Garrett Clipper on 23 June 2020 about a new Columbarium that was being installed in the cemetery close to the mausoleum. The article mentioned contacting the nearby Roman Catholic Church for information on purchasing lots and niches.

I emailed the church office and a week and a half later hadn’t gotten a response. I thought they might be busy as it was nearing Christmas. I decided to go to my local genealogy library to research some street names in the city and while there, mentioned I couldn’t get into the mausoleum. The librarian was working on a county cemetery project and had just finished with the cemetery I was interested in minutes before I entered. She handed me the book of copies of lot purchases. I found several for the family I was interested in, the Blairs, but none of the Johnsons, which were the ones I needed. Then it hit me, the records for the mausoleum were missing from the book.

I know this sounds unbelievable but for my long-time readers, you know weird things happen to me whenever I do boots-on-the-ground research – a woman came into the library asking for a book of newspaper articles from 25 years ago. While the librarian retrieved it, the woman and I spoke and she just happened to be the reporter who had written the story in 2020. She encouraged me to call the church office and not rely on waiting for a response from their email system. She also gave me the answers to my street names questions that I hadn’t been able to find on maps in the library.

I called the parish office as soon as I got home and was told that the clerical staff would check with the priest and call me back. The next day I got a returned phone call but no answers. The church runs the cemetery but not the mausoleum. They don’t know who is responsible for that. They have no key and didn’t know it was locked. They were going to check with the caretaker, Dave, for further info.

I asked if there were mixed burials in the mausoleum; by mixed I mean people of various faiths as the original intent when the cemetery was laid out in 1897 was to have a section for Roman Catholics and a section for “others.” Having spent so many years in the South I was used to the separation in cemeteries by race but hadn’t come across much by religious affiliation. I was told that the church doesn’t have the mausoleum records, and no one knows where they are or how many spaces are unsold there. The clerical person said she knew families buried in the mausoleum who were of differing faiths.

Not surprisingly, the church has yet to call me back to tell me what the caretaker said about how we could access the mausoleum. On Valentine’s, I went to a genealogy lecture locally and was speaking with a woman who said she knew who had the mausoleum books but had no idea how one accessed entry into it. She said she’d get back to me. Still waiting, sigh!

Genealogy is such a study of patience but also one of perseverance. At the last DeKalb County Genealogy Society meeting I asked if anyone knew where the records might be housed. No one did but one of the members happens to be the caretaker for a nearby cemetery’s mausoleum. The key he has happens to open the mausoleum I’m seeking to enter. We’re planning to get together soon so my husband and I can pay our respects.

I still intend to hunt down those missing records and that’s on my agenda for May.

I will be taking a break from blogging for the next two weeks while my husband and I go on a genealogical adventure. I’ll surprise you with the details when I write again on April 29th.

Another Genealogy Mystery Solved!

Back in 2016, I blogged about a family story my maternal grandmother told me about a church, Our Lady of the Snows, in what was then Austria-Hungary. It was a remarkable story that, as an adult, I wanted to investigate.

As I always recommend, I looked through the paraphernalia I’ve collected from family over the years and found the postcard pictured above. On the back was a cryptic handwritten message in blue ink to my grandmother that said, “Where Anna used to walk when she went on pilgrimage.”

I assumed Anna would be my maternal great-grandmother who I lived with in childhood. I had no idea she had gone on any pilgrimages. Unfortunately, the postcard was not signed nor did it state where the church was located. The only clue was the postmark – I was aware my great Aunt Barbara and my Aunt Anne Marie, named after her grandmother and mother, had gone to what was then Yugoslavia, to visit. I have no handwriting samples from my Aunt Barbara, though I do from my Aunt Anne Marie. The writing didn’t match Anne Marie’s and so I guessed it was written by Barbara. What I don’t understand is why she would not have written “Where Mom use to walk…” instead of using her mother’s given name. Since both are deceased I’ll never know for sure; possibly, since it was a postcard that anyone could read, she wanted to disclose no personal information. She was a private person who never shared any genealogical information with me when she was alive.

In my blog about the story, I asked readers if they could identify the church. No one responded. I’d already asked family and they had no idea, either. I searched online but turned up nothing.

Last week, I began corresponding with a Croatian genealogist who promptly wrote that it is called Marija Bistrica and it is about a 12-hour walk from my family’s ancestral village of Dubranec. My great-grandmother was quite a fast walker in her 80s so I can picture her climbing hills quickly to reach the site from her home.

Lidija, the genealogist, provided me a link to the site and at one time, the church was called Our Lady of the Snows. The “miracle” at Marija Bistrica does not match the story that my grandmother told me of her village church but it does involve a war in which she told other tales.

I was also informed that the village church was nearly destroyed in a devasting earthquake two years ago. That saddens me as 400 years of my maternal lines are buried there.

I have been blogging lately about ways to overcome your brick walls and I’m adding to my ever-expanding list what just happened to me – contact a genealogist or historian in the area you are researching. I could have had my answer seven years ago had I just reached out to someone knowledgeable about the area where my ancestor’s resided. Now I’m planning my own pilgrimage to this sacred site!

October Genealogical Coincidences Part 5

Clip from one of my many FamilySearch.org emails

This is the 5th blog in my personal synchronicity series. If you find what I’ve written weird, I will definitely agree with you. I can’t make stuff like this up!

I had put genealogy on a back burner with the move and after July 5^th, temporarily stopped accepting clients. My last day of research in Tampa had been a duesy! I started at the Circuit Court looking for property records and found a very interesting document for my Client. I was going to then go to the University of South Florida, on the other end of town, to look at funeral home records. I decided it would be nice if I took pictures of the former home and business of the Client’s grandfather since I had to pass them anyway.

I was turning onto Florida Avenue and looking for an address that had been changed over the years. I was trying to judge the location I needed from a business that had been in the same place. Out of nowhere, a car was on my tail so I quickly turned into the first drive I saw. I stopped at the side of the building and determined the place I was looking for was directly across the street.

As I got out of the car I noticed a man looking at me with a confused expression on his face. I decided to let him know I was a family historian who was only going to park for a second to take a picture for someone who lived in New England and whose grandpa used to live across the street. The man said, “And then you’re going to take care of your flat.”

Huh? What flat? Evidently, I had turned so quickly that I hit a sharp spot on a curb and sliced open my front passenger-side tire. Oh no! I was supposed to be at USF in 15 minutes. I am not good at changing tires. The man understood my panicked look and said it was a good thing it happened where it did. What was he talking about?

Turns out I did this in front of a tire store. Weirder still, the Client’s grandfather had owned a tire store and I had just taken a picture of that building. The kind man put on my spare and I made it just a few minutes late to my next appointment.

When I got home I told hubby what happened and he said he was glad as he had meant to tell me he was concerned that my tires would not make the long trip from Florida to Indiana. We had new tires put on the following day. Someone in the universe was definitely looking out for me!

Our oldest adult child closed on their new home at the end of July while we were all still in Florida. Since there is a law in Indiana that sellers have a week AFTER closing to move out, we all decided not to move out of our Florida home until we knew their new home would be unoccupied. We didn’t have a lot of time as we would be closing on our Florida home later in the week.

We decided that we would all drive up to Indiana on August 1^st. Accept, things don’t always go as planned. Hubby was going to drive a U-Haul but our youngest decided at the last minute not to drive my husband’s car up. We left hubby’s car at the realtor’s home until we had unpacked the Pods in Indiana, with the idea we would fly back to Florida and then drive the car up.

We thought it would be a great idea if the rest of us left in the middle of the night – not many people on the road and cooler temperatures for the wheels. We packed my car and our eldest’s car. A few minutes later we discovered our eldest’s car had a flat tire. Hubby decided he would leave in the middle of the night and the oldest and I would remain to get the tire fixed and then head out. We ended up leaving Florida at about 10 AM on August 1^st instead of midnight. Those 10 hours made a huge difference!

It was a horrendous drive. There was smoke in Florida from a brush fire that made visibility poor. The check engine lights came on; we almost ran out of gas in Atlanta as we were stuck in a major traffic jam during rush hour. The tire light came on and we had difficulty finding a tire store open at 6 PM. Turns out, the tires were just overheated and after waiting an hour, we were back on our way. There was road construction through the mountains of Tennessee. It rained through all of Kentucky and it was now dark again. We also were traveling with 4 cats between us and they were starting to lose it after 12 hours, barely halfway in our journey. And it was unbearably hot, at 10 PM in Tennessee it was still in the 90s. Our car air conditioners were struggling.

We made it driving straight through, driving for 20 hours. The following two weeks were a blur of remotely closing on our Florida home, dealing with Pods, flying back to Florida, and then driving back to Indiana again.

By the middle of August I was exhausted, bruised from lifting boxes, and really missing genealogy. I had my laptop and decided to pull it out and check my email.

Sure, there was lots of spam, missed sales, and several emails from FamilySearch.org.

I don’t know about you but I don’t get a lot of mail from FamilySearch, maybe monthly. But there were lots of emails notifying me of new finds. All of the discoveries were in regard to my Leininger and Landfair lines. These were the folks who I was now following in their footsteps by relocating to where they once lived.

In the many years that I’ve had a FamilySearch account, I only recall receiving one email about a Leininger find. Why was I suddenly getting all of these notices now?

I have no idea. Perhaps the spirits were trying to use the internet to let me know that they were glad I had returned to Indiana. Perhaps not.

Next week I’ll be writing two book reviews about synchronicity. Happy Halloween!

October Genealogical Coincidences Part 4

This fourth Saturday of October brings another strange story that personally happened to me in July. As I’ve previously blogged, our family decided to relocate from Florida to Indiana and our house went up for sale online on June 29^th. By July 1^st we had a bidding war and then, both parties decided to walk away from the contract by July 8^th.

This was a problem as my husband and oldest child had flown to Indiana the weekend of July 4^th and we had a contract on another home. My husband and I decided to cancel our contract until we found a new buyer.

A few hours after the second contract was canceled I received a call from our realtor informing me we had a new contract on our home. I told him that was impossible as it had only been shown to two people. He insisted the person who placed the contract had seen it.

I didn’t want to call someone a liar but clearly, a tour hadn’t happened. I told the realtor I wanted an open house on Sunday and I thought we should accept back up offers, given what had just occurred. He agreed and said he was going to verify with the purchaser’s realtor to find out when the person had seen the house.

I got a call about a half hour later, at 11 PM. Our realtor said I better sit down. “What now?” I thought. The realtor said the man had seen the outside of the home as he and his wife had stayed in my city during the pandemic and he often visited the park across the street from our home. So, the man wasn’t lying exactly. He had seen the exterior but not the interior; he viewed the interior through the internet.

I told the realtor I really wanted him to see the interior in person before we signed the contract as that was the problem with the first two that fell through; one spouse came and wanted it and when the other spouse was brought back, he didn’t. The realtor agreed and said the man had a flight the next day and he would see it in the late afternoon. I asked where he was flying in from. “Chicago,” said the realtor.

My husband and I are originally from the Chicago area so that surprised me; most of the new residents of our then-city was arriving from the mid-Atlantic states. The realtor said there was more . . . the man was from the same small town my husband had been born and raised in.

Wow, what a coincidence, I thought. But of course, that wasn’t all. When we looked at the contract we realized the man lived on the street we used to drive on as teenagers to go to the Lake Michigan beach. There were many beaches we could have used but this beach was considered “our” beach. He lived only 3 blocks from where we used to park.

Stranger, still, I somehow recognized his name. Since my high school annuals were packed, I went on Ancestry.com to check out the yearbook database. Sure enough, I went to high school with a guy with his name. Turns out, he wasn’t the same person.

The purchaser visited the next day and was shocked when he saw that we have a painting of the town in which he lived that my sister-in-law had bought my husband years ago.

We bought our home from an architect who designed it; he, too, was an architect.

This deal went through and it went quickly – in 3 weeks.

I mentioned in a previous blog one of our reasons for relocating was that we couldn’t get our insurance coverage increased. Because he was purchasing it, he was able to get fully insured. He is only going to live in the house for 6 months of the year and go back to his other home for the rest of the time. This made us feel good; he will definitely be someone who will keep the home we put so much effort into in good condition.

So, what does this synchronistic event mean in my life? Jessica Estrada’s blog, “No, It’s Not Just a Coincidence…” suggests that synchronicity “… is an event where needs are met, people are encountered, or things just come together perfectly when we need them. In other words, being in the right place at the right time.”

The house was definitely meant for him and to interpret my cousin Shakespeare saying all the world’s a stage, us players have all gone around the playhouse. My father’s family relocated from Ft. Wayne to northwestern Indiana. My husband and I relocated from northwestern Indiana to Florida. The purchaser follows us to Florida while we move to the Ft. Wayne area where my father’s family had started out. Full circle.

There’s one more Saturday in October and I’ll finish the month out with one more strange story. Or, perhaps, two – strange occurrences seem to be my destiny this year!

October Genealogical Coincidences Part 3

Photo Courtesy of Lori Samuelson 15 Oct 2022

The month of October is moving along and I have another strange personal story to share with you.

In June, my husband and I decided we were going to relocate from Florida to Indiana. We had lived in our home for 18 years so we had a lot of stuff. Summer in Florida is not the time to have a garage sale. We decided we would just pack everything up and squeeze it into Pods. We called it playing Big Jenga.

I helped our oldest pack up their home as they had also sold and was going to relocate. I had gotten the inside of our homes boxed fairly quickly but I really dreaded the garage. In Florida, basements are rare because the water table is so close to the surface. Many subdivisions do not permit sheds so the garage becomes the catch all place for everything that has no other room to go.

Ours was packed as our youngest had moved home at the start of the pandemic so their household items were also out there.

If that wasn’t bad enough, we had been getting a lot of rain so the mosquitos were in full force. It was a hot, dirty, itchy job. And then there was the attic!

We had two small attic accesses that contained items that we couldn’t part with but didn’t know what to do with, like my grandmother’s old wooden ironing board, a folding student desk with an inkwell we once acquired at an auction, our kids’ old treasures, and something I had totally forgot we had – my dad’s wooden toolbox.

Actually, the toolbox was my grandfathers and my dad had it passed to him. He had given it to me years ago and asked me to pass it on to any son’s I might have. At the time, I didn’t have any. So, it had been forgotten in the attic.

My husband was in the attic and I was on the ladder, grabbing the items he was handing d0wn. I lost my grip on the toolbox and it fell to the floor. Thankfully, it didn’t shatter but it did come apart slightly where the old glue had given way. I opened the box to see if the contents were ruined. What I found made me gasp.

My husband, still in the attic, asked me what was wrong. I was speechless, which is rare for me. My husband asked me if I was alright. I said yes, with tears in my eyes. He came down the ladder to find out what was going on.

I was holding a brittle yellow newspaper that had been stuffed in the toolbox. I don’t recall ever seeing it before. The headline was meaningless to me and the paper was dated 1933. I knew where my father was living that year, in Lake County, Indiana, where he was attending high school. The newspaper, however, was from Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana. It was the area where we were relocating to.

Although it was insufferably hot in that garage I got the cold shivers on my neck. I knew my paternal grandfather relocated to Ft. Wayne in the mid-1960s but he certainly wasn’t there in 1933.

I have yet to learn who in the Leininger family was in Ft. Wayne at that time or why that particular page was placed in the toolbox.

What I do know is if I hadn’t been a klutz and dropped it, I might not have ever found that newspaper.

I have no idea what the universe was trying to tell me but I felt that my ancestors were sending me a message that our relocation was the right decision. Times were tough during the 1930s and our move was not a fun experience for any of us. What we were going through, however, paled in comparison to the experiences my ancestors lived through during the Great Depression.

And weirdly enough, the newspaper is now back in the area where it once originated.

October Genealogical Coincidences Part 2

Yesterday, hubby and I visited his 1st and 2nd cousins who we have not seen for almost 50 years! After my coincidence series ends I’ll be writing about ways to connect with family that has become disconnected. I think it will be helpful to you with the holidays approaching.

As Spooky October continues, here’s another synchronicity that I experienced in May.

I’ve blogged before about issues I was having with a lineage society that I have chosen to not name (Lineage Society Disappointments and Lineage Societies – What gives?!) I was going on three years waiting for a response if my paperwork was going to be accepted or not.

Initially, the paperwork had been accepted but two weeks after I received a confirmation email and an invitation to attend the annual meeting, I was informed my acceptance was in error as I had not selected an individual that met the criteria for the organization. They also cashed my check for membership.

I asked if there was a list of accepted individuals and I was told there wasn’t. I then provided a few other possible candidates and was informed that one would work. After correcting the forms and resubmitting I waited three months and did not hear anything. I inquired by email if the paperwork had been reviewed. I was told that the genealogist was busy traveling and would let me know by the end of the month.

Another three months passed and I again emailed asking for an update. I was then informed that the genealogist had asked another genealogist to review the application. I was told to be patient as that individual was extremely busy.

A year passed and I again asked. It was now the start of the pandemic and I was told that more documentation was needed. This was problematic, of course, since archives were closing around the world. I had two questions that needed a response. I could reply with proof for the first question but the second was more challenging. I submitted a response within three months which was amazing, considering I was trying to obtain documents from four countries in the late 1600-early 1700 time period during the global shutdown of archives.

Oddly, one of the organizations I reached out to for assistance was the same one that the genealogist had but I was conversing with a different individual. It turned out my contact’s wife happened to have the same individual in her family tree and he was interested to learn what I uncovered. I promised to share my findings, which I did.

Another year and a half passed and I heard nothing from the lineage society. I decided to reach out to the president of the organization who I knew from another society. She forwarded my email to a gentleman who had recently taken over for the genealogist that was handling my application.

He profusely apologized and said he had never received any of my paperwork when the position was turned over to him. No surprise there! He asked for me to send proof my check had been cashed as that was also not clear to the new treasurer. He gave me his phone number and asked that I call him.

I found my canceled check online and emailed it to him; then called as he had requested. When he answered I told him who I was and he replied, “Hi, Cuz.” Cuz? Turns out he is related to me on my father’s line as he noticed my maiden name on the application and several of the great greats I had included.

My application was approved and my newfound cousin and I have spoken and emailed several times. Here’s some additional weird stuff about us:

He lived 50 miles from me in Florida for about 50 years
He had just relocated out of Florida for the same reasons we were
His new home is 50 miles from where my husband and I own property and considered moving
We share very similar views about many things, history in particular
I was writing an article about a Civil War myth purportedly that occurred in my former city and told him I was stuck on researching the man who was at the center of the story. He happened to be familiar with the man’s father, who was an early settler in Payne’s Prairie, close to where he lived most of his life.

I’m not sure what lesson I was supposed to learn from the universe but it does drive home the point that genealogy is a study of patience! If my application had been approved immediately I would likely never have connected with my “Cuz” nor obtained the information I needed to complete the article.

Next week – another creepy occurrence that happened to me in June.