Your American Ancestral Map

 

How many US states and Canadian provinces are associated with your family history? The question was asked as a survey sent this week from the New England Historic Genealogical Society. It's an interesting question if your ancestors, like mine, have lived for many generations in North America and have migrated from place to place. I was surprised at the number of states where my ancestors were born, lived and/or died.

So I invite you to grab a map and your pedigree chart and follow the trails of your various ancestral branches. The NEHGS was specific in their survey about not counting cousin locations and not counting short stays, but rather having a real ancestral connection to a place. But your curiosity can take you wherever you like.

My total was 25 states, plus unexpected burials in a 26th state and in Mexico. Those burials are quite a permanent connection, but not exactly a family association. For several end of line ancestors, I know a state of birth or of residence, but nothing about their ancestors who lived and perhaps died in those states.

NEHGS, with their focus on New England, asked about Canadian provinces, but not Mexican states. That is an unfortunate omission, as the US truly is a melting pot. My grandchildren would add locations in New England, Canada and Mexico to their maps. 

I hope you are inspired to map your ancestral history -- here's mine.

 

Photo Connections -- Part Two

 

A reader/friend/cousin-by-marriage shared that she made a new connection by paying attention to profile photos:

When I read your post about profile pictures I thought it a little strange, something that had to be a very rare occurrence. However, it seems even stranger after I had the same thing happen to me yesterday.
     
I was cleaning up some of the records I had posted on Ancestry. ... On some of the records I was drawn to the profile picture of one of the people who had saved the record.

As so often happens, I wandered off on a tangent. I did not have death records for my ... 3rd great grandparents, so I was looking at one of their children on FindAGrave. Someone had left flowers and there was the same profile picture! That let me know that she was also working of this mystery branch of the family. That caused me to look more closely at the other people in the cemetery. And there was the stone of my great grandparents.

... I contacted the person, who it turns out is a cousin of this mystery branch. She said that the profile picture was of her favorite video game character.

How Many Profile Photos Have You Uploaded ?

As I went on my profile photo changing mission this weekend, it was surprising how many different family history websites I needed to check. 
 
Figuring out which photo to use is probably the hardest part of the process. Having just one photo to choose definitely means being able to move quickly through the sites to make the update. 

Including this blog, nine sites now have nearly matching profile photos. One broken site remains to be updated. There are also a couple of sites with subscriptions that are temporarily lapsed.  

Can you find a photo connection or can you be a photo connection for your cousins? Please join me in making sure your profile photos show your consistent, smiling face.
 

A Face Breaks a Brick Wall

 

You've put your profile photo on Facebook and other social media, but what about the genealogy sites that you use? Genealogy is often a collaborative effort -- another form of social media. Have you uploaded your profile photo to sites like Ancestry and MyHeritage? If so, do you use the same photo on all those sites?

I haven't done as well as I could, but was recently reminded of just how important that consistent profile photo can be. Thanks to a DNA match who uploaded the same photo to Ancestry and MyHeritage, one of my most challenging brick walls was demolished. It was that profile photo which grabbed my attention.

When you look at your DNA matches, which ones intrigue you? The matches with photos always lure me first, while the others are all just a forgettable blur. 

I was specifically looking for matches related to the surname Vosseler. One of my family testers (with a photo) has a MyHeritage match to a gentleman of that name who lives in Germany (with no photo). 

Looking at seven shared matches, there are five matches with triangulated segments (example boxed in red), which is an important clue. Two of the seven matches have profile photos.

 

 

 

 

The gentleman near the top looked familiar and the segment was triangulated with Mr. Vosseler. I had seen that photo on Ancestry DNA. Why had I seen it? This was an important match.

 

Going to the same family tester on Ancestry, I was able to find the man in the match list. He had the same photo, though the two sites show it a bit differently. The face was the same and there were far more shared matches on Ancestry, some with a much higher shared cM level.

 

Using the shared matches from Ancestry, I was able to identify a surname of interest, build a tree, and demolish the 20-year-old Vosseler brick wall.

 

Looking at these nine matches to the highest match, there are only two photos, the first being the face that broke the wall. 

 

 

Sadly, with both Ancestry and MyHeritage, there are very few profile photos in this entirely random look. 

The moral of the story? Upload a profile photo. Be a welcoming and consistent face to your matches and collaborators. 

There is a lot of advice online about good profile photos. I'll be updating mine soon. Will you join me?

 

A Family or A Drink

Does 21 days of family make you want a drink? What if the family is named the same as a drink? Does that call for a double? I'm not much of a drinker, but recent family research has me thinking a bit too much about alcohol.

Searching the web for members of the Martini family turns up a lot of lovely photos and recipes. Unfortunately, finding the people isn't quite as simple as finding the drink.

October 2020 brings us the 21-day Family Connections Experiment. It's encouragement to connect with family past and present. For me that includes blogging to connect the past and present and to toss out some cousin bait.

The Martini Connection

Katherine Vosseler Wittekind Martini is the ancestor of dozens of my cousins. She is a new DNA discovery that is the key to demolishing my long-standing Vosseler (Vossler) brick wall. I hope this brief sketch on her life will help me connect with some of her descendants, my cousins.

Katherina Vosseler was born on or about January 14, 1835, in Württemberg. I have found four different birthplaces for her, so will not speculate. The birthplace most often found in online trees is probably a misreading or misinterpretation of one of the other three records.

She immigrated to the United States, where the first confirmed record of her presence is the birth of a daughter, Mary Margaret Wittekind, in Kansas in September, 1858. There is a possible marriage to Mr. Wittekind in Ohio, but that is also speculative.

On August 16, 1860, Catherine Wittikind married John Martini in a civil ceremony in Leavenworth County, Kansas Territory. The Martinis soon moved to Missouri, where their oldest son was born in 1861. They were living in St. Louis by April, 1863, when their second son arrived. They moved to Centralia, Illinois, in 1873, where the last two of their children were born.

Katherine had at least one child that did not survive to adulthood; however, seven children did survive. They are:

1.  Margaret Mary Wittekind Brightfield, born September 18, 1858 in Kansas, died September 11, 1940 in St. Louis, Missouri
2.  John L Martini, born May 16, 1861 in Missouri, died January 08, 1936 in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois
3.  Henry Martini, born April 09, 1863 in St. Louis, Missouri, died April 01, 1936 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California
4.  Josephine Alphena Martini, born December 27, 1869 in St. Louis, Missouri, died January 07, 1937 in St. Louis, Missouri
5.  Anna J Martini, born December 17, 1871 in St. Louis, Missouri, died June 20, 1961 in Maplewood, St Louis County, Missouri
6.  Eugene Martini, born April 09, 1874 in Centralia, Marion County, Illinois, died August 30, 1963 in Springdale, Washington County, Arkansas
7.  Emma Martini, born April 28, 1878 in Centralia, Marion County, Illinois, died June 10, 1961 in Maplewood, St Louis County, Missouri

John Martini served the Union, from Missouri, during the Civil War. He operated saloons and boarding houses while living in St. Louis. After moving to Centralia, he opened a restaurant and bakery in the downtown business district. He was a sponsor of an 1881 county history book, which includes a few useful bits of information. 

1881 History of Marion and Clinton Counties

 

Katherine purchased three town lots in 1877, in Centralia, in her own name, as Illinois permitted a married woman to own property without her husband. This was unusual at the time. I speculate that, having been widowed young, she wanted to own property as a protection against a repeat occurrence.

By the time of the 1880 census, Katherine and John had taken into their household her much younger half-siblings, John and Mary Ellen Vosseler, who had been born in 1868 and 1870, respectively. The census taker spelled all the surnames incorrectly, leading to my years of difficulty in finding the Vosseler children and also hiding the census record from Martini researchers.

Katherine Martini died fairly young, in 1887, triggering probate in Marion County for her property. She was buried in the Martini family plot in New Picker's (Gatewood Gardens) Cemetery in St. Louis. John Jacob Martini died in the Soldier's Home in Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1909, and was buried in the same plot. 

Katherine's burial permit tells us her age, by which her birthdate can be calculated. It is an important clue in the search for Katherina Vosseler Martini. 

 

If you are a descendant of Katherine, please leave a reply or use the contact form on the right. I'd love to connect!