family history

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A Change in Direction For Me?

I have been posting to this blog for over a year now.  I have posted photos, short stories of family memories, various forms of poetry, and some things I would just term as miscellaneous.  The only thing they all have in common is that I have been mainly in the “send mode” and have been broadcasting bits and pieces of me since this blog started.

I’ve been so busy sending when what I would really like to be doing is receiving information.

For over 25 years I have been gathering genealogy data on my family history. I can tell you birthdates, marriage dates, spouse’s names, children’s names, places of birth, battle grounds, cemetery locations and all sorts of information that would amaze you. But what I really wanted to know is the why.

Why did my great, great, grandparents leave their homeland? Did anyone get left behind? Were they driven away or was it a grand adventure.

With the posts that I have already created as a background, I am going to try to ask some questions about specific cities, countries or events that someone else might have some information on.

For instance, one branch of my family is from Sweden. In 1855, my great, great, grandparents (Anders Eriksson) and his wife (Inga Stina Jean Pettersdottor Holm) left Eggvena Parish in Herrljunga, Älvsborg, Sweden with their first child (Anders Petter Andersson) to start a new life in America. Why they chose to come to follow his brother to Carver County in Minnesota is a mystery as this was new territory just opened for settlement.

They were easily among the first group of Swedes to leave and get a new start in the Midwest.

Why did they leave Eggvena? What happened to their parents? Were any brothers and sisters left behind? What happened to their first child? Did he die in the move?

I am looking to share information about what happened to our family if anyone has information on Eggvena and what their life would have been had they stayed.

Information on contacts with historians, genealogists, or historical societies would be welcome. I am interested in what life was like for them before they left and how many followed them.

Now I started the first part of the story, does anyone have something to add?

Hey – I Know That Kid!

Dorothy & Lucille Holm Holding Their Little Brother, Clarence

Dorothy Holm Storbeck & Lucille Holm Kunze holding their little brother, Clarence Holm circa 1917 (Evelyn Holm Grant and Walter Holm were born in 1918 & 1926)

Yesterday I received a postcard from the Carver County Historical Society of Carver County, Minnesota announcing a rebuild of their website along with news of the addition of fully indexed online library of 15,000 photographs held by the society. I was excited because my family has a long history with the county.

My paternal family had immigrated to Minnesota from Sweden in 1850 making them one of the earliest settlers of the territory. My Great Grandfather was born in Carver County and grew up to be one of the original members of the town council of Cologne, MN. His first born son was born in Carver County and moved with him as he homesteaded in Cuba, North Dakota, in 1886. My grandfather was raised in North Dakota, was married and raised a family on the prairie. My father was born near that farm in 1917. I was raised on that same farm (Now owned by one of my cousins) and lived in North Dakota until 1990 when I coincidentally moved to a small town near Carver County too start a career in Insurance.

I knew my family had relatives in the area, but knew nothing about the county or the people in it. I became interested in my family tree and began a 25 yearlong investigation of my family’s history with one of the first steps beginning with research at the Historical societies in the area. Thousands of hours were spent pouring over microfiche and index cards that contained newspaper information that had been indexed and computerized.

So, while I was very happy to hear about the new service, I was not expecting too much in the way of new information. You see I had been associated with the society for nearly 20 years during which time I had researched well of 40,000 individuals associated with my family, mostly in and around Minnesota and North Dakota and thought I had mined the source completely dry.

Imagine my surprise to enter my family name into a search engine only to discover a long lost photo of my father as a baby being held by his older sisters taken nearly 100 years ago. I can only surmise that my Great Grandparents had sent a copy of the picture to one of the cousins who still lived in Carver County many years ago.

Obviously I have ordered a duplicate of the photo to share with my brothers and sisters. I am sure they will cherish the photo as much as I.

I maintain a membership in a number of historical societies and have always been amazed at the dedication and sacrifice displayed by their memberships to maintain, catalog and display our history. Over the next few years I will be retiring from my insurance business and am looking forward to many hours of volunteering at the society to repay those people who have given me so much.

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Who Am I to Judge?

Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.

-Proverbs 13:24

“Go get a switch from the Plum Orchard” my mother instructed me.

I moved slowly, trying to delay the inevitable pain of the spanking I had earned for my conduct at church that Sunday morning. At the plum grove, I selected a tender branch, (the smallest I believed my mother would accept) to be used to deliver my sentence. Leaving the decision of which switch I would choose added to the anticipation of the penance.

Life had a rhythm on the farm. As a child too young to really work in the field, I spent most of my days playing with my younger brother in the fields around our farm house. In the evening, we would join my older brothers and sister in family games of baseball or hide and seek. Saturday early mornings were special as we were allowed to watch cartoons on the old black and white television we had on the farm. Sundays were reserved for church and rest.

Each Sunday began with us dressing in our best clothing, being taken to church and then being marched as a group down the center aisle, pausing to genuflect before entering our pew in our rural church. The next hour (half during harvest) we would stand up, sit, and kneel in time to the chanted Latin of the Catholic Mass. It was a solemn time, punctuated by the choir singing, the priest delivering his sermon and the occasional child, being dragged out of church by a red faced parent under the watchful eye of the congregation. The child knowing his fate would be whimpering and pleading for mercy, while covering his behind with his hand. It would be to no avail, as we all knew the sound of the church door closing would soon be followed by a whack and the immediate return of the sniffing child to his mother.

I never really knew what impious mischief I did that would guarantee my secular punishment. Perhaps it was my dropping of a toy I had smuggled into church, or maybe it was the coloring of a songbook page. Whatever it was, the look delivered by my mother told me justice was coming.

After church we were loaded into our car and were driven home. If punishment were in order, we were expected to go to my parent’s bedroom to wait as mom and dad decided our fate. The punishment would be most likely an easy quick spanking with an open hand, but could be escalated with a hair brush or wooden spoon if the occasion demanded. The fetching of a switch was the ultimate punishment.

Whatever correction was administered, the pain was momentary and was followed by Sunday dinner and life would go on. As far as I knew, the same scene happened every Sunday in every home around our farm. Sunday morning – get up, get dressed, go to church and then come home and get beat! It was nothing to be excited about, simply part of our lives and the duty of a loving parent.

Stories of corporal punishment from my generation are told with the same reverence as walking uphill in a blizzard to (and from) school or having to wear hand me downs that my brothers (and sisters) all wore. The stories are remembered almost fondly as part of our colorful fabric of our lives.

It was with that history, that I read the story last week concerning Adrian Peterson and his alleged abusive punishment of his children. I hadn’t heard the word “switch” for many years, but knew exactly what it meant. I was a little startled to find out the practice had survived to this time, but I guess it didn’t surprise me that much. I was even less surprised that Adrian Peterson was totally shocked to learn that the behavior was now considered a form of torture and his career and reputation was ruined.

I understood his behavior. Isn’t discipline part of love? I had spent many years as a parent struggling with that issue. I however spent most of my adulthood around parents who believed in “sparing the rod” and considered corporal punishment horrible. But if I had lived in Peterson’s neighborhood, I could have easily gone the other direction and taken up the switch.

I truly believe that he loves his children as much as my parents loved me. Does love justify his actions?

In this case I don’t know- I just don’t know. What I do know is that it is not up to me to cast judgment on Adrian Peterson’s actions. It is my duty to live my life as best I can and leave the decision of his intention to his Lord.

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Tales From The Rosencrans Family Tree

While my primary genealogy research has been on my family, I have done quite a bit of research on my wife’s paternal family tree (Rosencrans/Rosenkrans/Rosenkranz). While I knew that her family was an early arriver to America from Europe, I was surprised to discover just how early in colonial history it was.

My wife’s 7th great grandfather was Harmon Hendrick Rosenkrans, who was born in Norway in 1634 and had moved to Amsterdam in New Netherlands prior to 1657. According to census figures, the non-native American population was less than 60,000. Harmon married Magdalene Dirckse on March 3, 1657 in New Netherlands. Apparently his new wife had a sense of humor as illustrated by court records dated just a few days later.

“Only a few days after the wedding of Herman and Magdalena, the court records of New Amsterdam registered the following: [March 15, 1657] “The Scout N: de Silla, plaintiff v|s Madaleen Dirck and her bridegroom, defendants. The plaintiff says that the defendants have presumed to insult the Firewardens of this City on the public highway, and to make a street riot, according to the complaint made to his Worship. Requesting for the maintenance of the aforesaid gentlemen’s quality that the petitioners [?] be publicly punished or fined as their Worship shall think proper. Defendant Madaleen Dirck appears alone in Court; admits, that she and her sister passed by the door of the Firewarden Litschoe, and as they always joked, when the Firewarden came to their house, she said: ‘There is the chimney sweep in the door, his chimney is well swept, and not another word was said about it.’

Such behavior cannot, and ought not to be tolerated on account of its bad consequences, the Burgomaster’s condemn, as they do hereby, the above named Madaleen Dirck in a fine of two pounds Flemish, to be applied, one half for the Church and one half for the Poor, and notify her at the same time to avoid all such and similar faults, or in default thereof other disposition shall be made. Done in Court at the City Hall at Amsterdam in N. Netherland.”

-The Records of New Amsterdam, 1653 – 1674, VII., p. 146. 

To understand the seriousness of the fine, consider that a Flemish Pound was equal to 6 Dutch Guilders. On May 24, 1626 Peter Minuit, Director of the Dutch Colony was reported to have bought the entire Island of Manhattan from the Native Americans for goods valued at 60 Guilders. That would mean the fine leveled in Amsterdam on my wife’s 7th great grandmother was equal to one fifth the purchase price of Manhattan.

Obviously whatever was intended by her remarks was taken quite seriously.