Alexander Shute and no-good, very bad, horrible lawsuit - and what he did about it

 

Alexander B. Shute

The other day, I was poking around some Minnesota records, trying to add some details to the lives of my Shute ancestors who lived there in the mid-1800s. I knew my ancestor Alexander B. Shute had served in the Civil War (the only ancestor of mine to serve and survive) and was originally from New York. That was about all I knew of him. I decided to try and find some newspaper articles, as they often record details not found in other record types, and I was hopeful (since I couldn't remember searching for his family before in newspapers) that I'd find something good. 

Boy was I right! One of the first things I found were a few mentions of family members going to court against each other. Alexander's wife Letitia (Sanford) Shute sued her likely first cousin Mahlon Mitchell, over what I don't know. Alexander and his brother-in-law Gilbert Sanford went to court over something else. There were also statements of a judgment against Alexander, for which some of his land was confiscated and sold at auction. That had to have been awful, watching something you'd worked so hard to obtain be taken from you and sold to pay off a debt or judgment. But that's not the lawsuit mentioned in the title of this post. 

That lawsuit was found mentioned first in 1891, where he and his son Adoniram were mentioned as suing the town of Princeton, Minnesota, where he lived. I wondered what could have happened that he'd sue his own town? The case was a civil case, not a criminal one, but nothing further was said about what it was concerning. The jury agreed to disagree, and apparently that was the end of it. Alexander took the case to court again in the next term, and the original sentence (whatever it was) was upheld. Alexander then took his case to the state supreme court. This was in 1894, so he'd been at getting resolution for whatever this issue was for several years. Talk about persistence. 

Then, in July 1894, an article finally revealed what the issue was. Apparently about 1889, the town of Princeton had contracted with some men to clear brush and trees to make a road. The men were apparently careless with the fires they used to clear that brush, and didn't extinguish it properly, according to Alexander. The fire spread, and eventually Alexander's house took fire and was completely destroyed. Alexander apparently felt the town of Princeton, who'd hired the contractors, was responsible for the damage, and sued them but lost. He took it up again, and lost when the town was held not liable for the fire. The state supreme court then took it up and, once again, sided with the town of Princeton in holding them not liable for the damage done by the contractors. I can't imagine surviving something as horrific as a house fire that destroys everything you have, and then for the court to dismiss charges against those ultimately responsible for that fire happening. It must have been maddening to have it fall apart like that. 

What really got me is what happened two months later. A group of 31 men petitioned the county for a road to be constructed in the county that would lead to more than one town. The county granted the petition and put together a committee to examine the route of the proposed road. And guess where that committee was planning to meet? In the new home of Alexander Shute! It boggles my mind that he allowed his home to be used for a committee to plan to do the same thing that had cost him his home in Princeton, and which he spent five years (and probably a good amount of money) on seeking redress for, but never received any. If anyone had reason to give up on the system, withdraw and seek isolation, I would think it'd be him. Yet he apparently stayed involved and engaged in his community. I have a whole new respect for this ancestor of mine, the maturity and likely forgiveness he had to muster and display is inspiring. He didn't give up seeking what he felt was right. And when that was apparently ultimately denied him, he kept on living and being a part of his community. 

Sadly, a couple years after this, he was injured in an accident, and never fully recovered. Alexander Shute died in Princeton, Minnesota, on 16 April 1897. He likely had no idea his life was about to be cut short when he was going through all those court proceedings, and later helping to work out the county road. I'm glad he didn't allow those circumstances to ruin him, embitter him, or cause him to withdraw. That's a lesson I hope I can take to heart when things don't go my way.

Family History Month - post 17

I posted earlier that I had two pictures of my 5th-great-grandfather, Lewis Parks Shute. I found that I actually have three. However, I think two of them are duplicates. The more I look at them, the more I think they are the same picture. The top one has actually been flipped horizontally, for easier comparison.

 

I've always wondered, did he do his hair that way on purpose, or was he making the best of what he had left?

 

 

Family History Month - post 13





This post is of one of two pictures I have of my 5th-great-grandfather, Lewis Parks Shute. This one is of him and his second wife, Lucinda Foote. They were married in 1856, and he died in 1869, so the picture would've been taken sometime in between those years. He is the ancestor furthest back in generations that I have any pictures of. For most of my other lines, if I have a photo of my 3rd-great-grandparents, I consider it lucky. So having a picture of someone born in 1811, I think is just amazing.

 

 

Surname Saturday - Just Shute Me

I was looking through my Rootsmagic file the other day, looking for a branch to go climb. I wound up in the Shutes, the family of my grandma Blossom's paternal grandmother. I wound up looking at the second family of my 5th-great-grandfather, Lewis Parks Shute. His first wife, Eliza Wright, died in the mid 1850s, and he remarried to a much younger woman (almost 20 years younger than he was!) named Lucinda Foote. They had three kids together, though according to a published family history, the first two passed away at ages 10 and 8. Lewis had already buried a wife and possibly several of his children, so losing two more must have been just heartbreaking. Saddest of all, Lewis himself died when his youngest son, Abraham Lincoln Shute, was only 4 or 5 years old.

I wanted to know more about Abraham, as I've always been intrigued by his name, so I started looking him up on Ancestry. One of the first documents that came up was a passport application. I've heard Lisa Louise Cooke talk about passport applications, and all the cool stuff you can get from them, so I was excited.

One of the cool things was seeing where he wanted to go. He requested a passport to visit India, Italy, Japan, China, Palestine (Israel), and Egypt. I thought I was the first missionary in my family to visit Japan, but it turns out, Abraham beat me by several decades! Pretty cool to think a relative of mine and I have something like that in common. One major difference though is his passport was for an "indefinite time" so he didn't know how long he'd be out. Makes me wonder when he came home.

Another cool thing is - pictures! You get a much better picture of his wife, Laura Belle Shute, than you do of him, though you can see him a little. The physical description of him says he was 5'10.5", high and slightly receding forehead, hazel eyes (like me!), medium straight nose, small mouth, receding chin (I never knew your chin could recede?), gray hair, medium complexion, oblong face, and his distinguishing mark was smallpox scars.

One intreresting thing really stood out. His name is written (well, typed) as A. Lincoln Shute. In the notes section, it says "First name is Abraham - but never written." He didn't like, or at least didn't use, his first name. It's rare that you get a glimpse of what your ancestors were like as actual people, and to see something like that, his own personal preference of his name, just really makes him more of a real person to me.

Another interesting thing is his half-sister, Mary Josephine Shute, wrote what looks to be an affidavit confirming his birthdate and place, and had it notarized even. Mary was about 13 years older than Abraham, so she was in a good position to know the facts personally and remember them. What struck me was the name she signed under - Mary Josephine Couse. My records showed she married a guy named Horace Tracy, not someone named Couse. So I went looking for more information on Mary and her family.

What I knew about Mary was that she was born in New York about 1852, and lived there until at least 1865 (when Abraham was born). By 1870, she was working as a teacher and living in Minnesota with Gilbert Sanford and his family, the brother-in-law of Mary's oldest brother (and my direct ancestor) Alexander Blood Shute. I found info on her marriage to Louis/Lewis Couse pretty quickly, as they were married for many years. She and Louis had already gotten married by 1880, so I started to wonder if I had the wrong spouse. When I found her death certificate, the informant was a Mr. R. H. Tracy, So there was a Tracy connection, and I wanted to find it.

I found some records for two Tracys, Roy and Alice, who said they were children of Horace Tracy and Mary Shute. But I couldn't find anything on Horace. What's more, the census records for Mary (now Mary Couse) had an Alice in the family, but no Roy. What was going on here? Then I found two records that helped put things together. One was a probate record for Horace Tracy who died in 1875 (in between the federal censuses) whose estate was administered by Alva Tracy (no relationship stated). The second was 1880 census for Alva Tracy, his wife Phebe, and his grandson - Roy H. Tracy. To double check, I went back to the 1870 census, and found Horace listed as one of the children. That's why I couldn't find him with Mary - they married after 1870, and he had died before 1875. That's a short marriage, not much time to leave records.

I still don't have a marriage record for Horace and Mary, though they apparently married in Minnesota and moved to Iowa, where Horace's family was living. They were married long enough to have two kids together, but Horace was gone by 1875. She married Lewis Couse just a month before the 1880 census was taken, and for some reason, her son Roy was sent to live with his paternal grandparents. Roy stayed a part of his family's life - he was a witness for his sister Alice's wedding, he named one of his daughters after his sister, and in her later years, his mother moved in with him until she passed away. So why would Roy not live with his mother? Louis had work as a carpenter and wagon maker, but maybe that didn't pay enough? He had two kids of his own, Eva and Willis, from a previous marriage when he married Mary, and maybe that played into it as well.

Whatever the cause for having Roy be raised by his grandparents, I'm glad it didn't cut him off from his family. He stayed close to his mom and his sister, and that's awesome. I'm glad Mary stayed involved in her kids' lives, that she didn't let the death of their father cause her to distance herself from them. I've seen firsthand how tragedy can bring a family together, and Mary seems to have drawn her family close to her, even though circumstances caused that she not raise one of her kids in her own home.

Genes Day Friday - DNA Circles at last!!

One of the cool things about DNA testing at Ancestry is their use of DNA Circles. The circle is basically a group of people who share autosomal DNA with at least 3 other people in the circle and have a common ancestor in their family trees. This means that Ancestry figures, because of the comination of DNA and family tree matches, your shared DNA probably comes from that common ancestor. Because autosomal DNA inheritance is random, you won't match everyone in the circle, even though you have the same ancestor. Ancestry looks back as far as 9 generations in your tree, so you could potentially be matched with some pretty distant cousins.

When I first got my DNA results, I didn't have a tree uploaded to my account. I've kind of been holding out for Ancestry and Rootsmagic to get their sync issues worked out, so I postponed putting up my tree for a while. But when I saw their recent blog post about how the tree sync feature is delayed (as any complex software could be) I decided to post my tree. Because I had no tree, I wasn't put in any DNA circles, so I figured my circles would show up soon after uploading the tree. I was pretty disappointed when, after a couple weeks, I still had no circles. So I did what I always do when I have to wait for something - I distracted myself with other projects, and came back later. And voila - it worked!!

 

 

All I've really had time to do so far is check out which ancestors the circles are centered around. The variety is really interesting. I have 12 circles so far, and 8 of them are for Norwegian ancestors! The closest to me in generations are Betsy Martha Olson and Knute J. Bergstad, my 2nd-great-grandparents (and spouses to each other interestingly). Four more of the circles are dedicated to each of Betsy and Knute's parents - Betsy's parents were Andreas Olson and Ingeborg Fadness, and Knute's were Johannes Sjursen Bergstad and Torbjorg Knutsdatter Fadness. The other two Norwegians in the lot are Knute Gulleikson Fadness and Ingeborg Olsdatter Rongen, who turn out to be Torbjorg Fadness's parents. That means half of my circles come from one ancestral couple and their parents or grandparents. Either these ancestors have a LOT of descendants, or my Norwegian DNA is strongly biased towards them. Or both.

 

All of these Norwegian ancestors are from my maternal grandfather's paternal side, the Bergstads. There aren't any DNA circles for his maternal Norwegians, the Hammers. I wonder if I'll see any of those pop up later?

 

My remaining four circles cluster around another family group. Adoniram Shute is my 3rd-great-grandfather on my paternal grandmother's father's side. His wife was Mary Groff, and her parents were Paul Groff and Susanna Garlinghouse. So that group of circles basically covers the ancestors of my great-great-grandmother Eldora Shute (Adoniram and Mary's daughter).

 

Of my four grandparents, my paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather have ancestors represented in these circles. That means I have no circles as of yet for any of my paternal grandfather or maternal grandmother's lines. My grandpa's lack of circles, I can understand - relatively small families and recent immigrants to the Americas (1840s-1900s). My maternal grandmother's side though, I'm surprised. Colonial English, plus German immigrants with large families, plus French-Canadians with HUGE families. And no circles for any of them? Maybe they'll pop up later. I wonder how often Ancestry updates their circle roll call.

 

All in all, very interesting to see who my circles center around, and what ancestors pop up in my DNA. I'm very much looking forward to delving deeper into this!

 

 

Wordless Wednesday: Those serious Shute kids

This is a photo I received from a cousin of mine, of siblings of my ancestor Daniel Shute. On the left is Abraham Lincoln Shute, age 3, and next to him is Eliza Shute, age 8. How on earth did they get their kids to look so serious? Mine won't hold a face like that for a second.

Surname Saturday - Just Shute Me

Did you ever have one of those days where you find yourself in the middle of something, and you can't remember how or why you started it? That's where I found myself the other day - looking at records for my Shute family line, ancestors of my 2nd-great-grandmother, Eldora (Shute) (Wagner) Greenfield. I may have decided to finally start tracking down confirmation of information I downloaded from FamilySearch more than a dozen years ago. Anyways, while looking for Shute family history info, I soon found myself staring at the following entry in the Bi-Centennial History of Albany on MyHeritage.com:

I found that Braddock's defeat was part of the French and Indian War. But that got the wheels in my mind turning - did I have another Patriot ancestor on this side of my family tree? I would love to be able to document another Patriot in my family, and be able to commemorate them at my monthly SAR meetings. So I dug in and started researching.

I've spent the last several years of my personal research focusing on my more recent immigrant ancestors, so I wasn't too familiar with how to get hold of records from the Northeast before 1850. I soon found it's a lot more difficult than I had first anticipated. But I did find something incredible pretty quickly - the will of my 7th-great-grandfather Henry Shute!

It wasn't the original will, unfortunately, but it was a copy of the will as well as records of the court proceedings that reviewed the proofs and examinations made by the witnesses of the will. This was a fascinating document, for several reasons. First and foremost, Henry only names two grandchildren among his heirs, and one of them is my ancestor, Lewis P. Shute. Lucky me! Another reason is the description one of the witnesses gave of the circumstances of his being asked to witness the will. According to Philo Avery, it happened like this:

"[Philo Avery]and George W. Howard called into the house of said Shute one afternoon, he thinks when coming from Town meeting - that said Shute asked them to stay to tea as he had a piece of paper he wanted
to witness – they both staid and took tea and after tea Shute took them into another room where said instrument was lying on the table _ said Shute then put his hand on the instrument and said this is my last will and testament and shewed them where to sign their names and told them to put their residence
also."

He also described later in his testimony that the will was folded up, so he couldn't read it and didn't ask to, just that he saw Henry's name exposed at the bottom, and signed where he was asked to. The whole episode is just so interesting to me - the idea that we have a description of an actual event sometime probably in early 1845 just fires my imagination. It's like turning on a video camera for just a few minutes and recording a scene in the living room of an ancestor 9 generations removed from me. Wow!

One other thing that caught my attention in these documents was Philo's acquaintance with Henry. When Henry died in 1850, he was over 70 years old, perhaps close to 80. Philo, at the time of Henry's death, was 31, and in his deposition says he had known Henry for 15 years prior to witnessing his will in 1845. That works out to roughly 20 years of acquaintance, so Philo would have met him at around the age of 10 or 11. How did this young boy meet Henry, and become so well acquainted with him that Henry would ask him, though they were 40 or more years apart in age, to be a witness on his last will and testament? I might need to look into Philo's history a little more, and see if there's anything about him that would help explain this.

While I have not yet uncovered any evidence of a Shute ancestor serving in the Revolutionary War, the information I have found on my Shute ancestors is amazing. I'm glad whatever it was that drew me into researching them caught me when it did. I love finding tidbits like this about my ancestors.

Sunday's Obituary - Adoniram Shute

Adoniram Shute and his wife, Mary (Groff) Shute

I found the death certificate for my third-great-grandfather Adoniram Shute a number of years ago, and was surprised at the amount of detail it had. It listed his name as "A. A. Shute", and said he was a 56 year old widower, that he was a laborer, was born in New York, and had resided in Montana for the last 8 weeks. There was no information on his parents, and the cause of death was one word - paralysis, with acute dysentery listed as a contributing factor. The informant is listed as "Quigley" of Culbertson, Montana, where he was buried two days after passing away.

Death certificate for Adoniram Shute

 

All this information, however, didn't tell the full story. A relative told me years ago that Adoniram died on a train in Montana, but didn't have anything to backup his story. I've wanted to try and get some more detail on what exactly happened, but have been unable to. Until now.

 

I splurged and renewed my subscription to Newspapers.com (I mean, really, 8 bucks is a Value Meal these days, and this will get me SO much more than a McWhatever would). While searching for various family names, I got the idea to look for info on Adoniram's passing. Knowing that his death certificate had little personal identifying information, I went looking by place (Montana) and date (October 1909) but instead of a name, I searched for "train", "Culbertson" and "died". I found a couple of random stories, but a bit further down the list of hits, I found this in The Searchlight, the Culbertson, Montana newspaper, dated October 8, 1909.

 



 

The name is a bit off (Shultz vs Shute) and the date of death is off by one (Saturday was the 2nd, not the 1st), but everything else matched - the mention of paralysis, his being buried in Culbertson, and even the name Quigley (which seems to have been a company or worksite name, rather than a person). Also, Adoniram's mother, Letitia (Sanford) Shute was indeed enumerated in Milaca, Mille Lacs County, Minnesota in the 1910 census. I had found his obituary!

 

I find it very interesting that the information about his mother was mentioned in the obituary but not in the death certificate. Perhaps they didn't know her name or where she was born (the only info the death certificate asked for), just that she was alive in Milaca. I'm also struck by the language used in describing the cause of death - a "stroke of paralysis". Does that mean he died of a stroke? How would dysentery have played a contributing role to such a death?

 

The last sentence is the most intriguing. All of Adoniram's kids were grown by 1909 (the youngest was 25, the oldest over 40). His wife Mary Groff had died over 20 years previously, so there was no one at home for him to care for of the family he raised. His father, Alexander B. Shute, had died in 1897, but his mother was still alive (and would live until 1912). As the oldest of three boys, he probably had the responsibility to provide for his widowed mother. He was apparently out west working for a railroad and sending money back to her, literally until the day he died. (Interesting side note - the informant on his mother's death certificate is Warren Shute, the older of Adoniram's two younger brothers, so he probably took his mother in after Adoniram passed).

 

I've had the facts about Adoniram's life for a long time, but this one short paragraph I found in a newspaper today really helped turn those facts into a story. Adoniram seems to have been a good man. He carried on for decades after losing his wife, raised their children, and after his father died, took care of his widowed mother in the best way he could. He was a loyal son and provider right to the very end. I see those same traits in my father, Adoniram's 2nd-great-grandson, and I can't help but feel proud that we have a history in my family of such a good work ethic, family loyalty and devotion. I hope that I can live up to their examples and instill that same loyalty in my own kids.



Railroad records finally located

Me and my sister on a train 30 years ago

Trains have a unique place in my family history. My older two kids were obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine for years when they were little, and spent a lot of time building tracks and running the trains on them. I remember taking train rides as a kid, and while I can't remember where we were going or why, I do remember how fun they were. While living in Montana, my folks would take train rides out to Washington to visit my uncle Randy, and to go to Seahawks games. Going a bit further back, one of my 3rd-great-grandfathers, Philip Hammer, died after being struck by a train in California in 1899. Another 3rd-great-grandfather, Adoniram Shute, reportedly died of a heart attack while on a train in Montana in 1909. But on a happier note, several generations of my paternal ancestry worked on trains, or in jobs relating to trains. My grandpa, Fred Gibson, worked for years in the railroad industry. His father and uncles both worked for the railroad, and his maternal grandfather Samuel Joseph did as well.



Fred Gibson in a train, 1970s

 

Knowing that several relatives of mine worked for the railroad, when I got started in genealogy I became interested in knowing more about their time with the railroad, and what the railroad records could tell me about them. Before too long, I found an index to Northern Pacific Railway personnel records. I saw that there were indeed personnel files for my grandpa, his dad, uncles David and Thomas, and what looks like his maternal grandfather, Samuel Joseph. 

 

Index record for Fred J. Gibson, my great-grandfather

Index record for Thomas Lewis Gibson, my grandfather's uncle

 

Unfortunately, at the time I could not figure out how to find the records these indexes were pointing to. One thing led to another, and I never really got back to finding out how to find these records. I made token searches now and again, but never found them.

 

Until this week.

 

I got a text message saying Ancestry had released images and indexes for a record group called "U.S., Northern Pacific Railway Company Personnel Files, 1890-1963". My mind immediately went back to those railroad record indexes from so long ago, and I went to searching. Three minutes later, I hit the jackpot!

 

 

 

Well, part of the jackpot. It turns out they had records for two of the five people I had index numbers for, Frederick John Gibson (my great-grandfather) and Thomas Lewis Gibson (his brother). David H. Gibson, Frederick and Thomas' younger brother, somehow got skipped (they have the records before and after his number, but not his), and the collection on Ancestry stops before Sam Joseph and my grandpa's records. Hopefully future updates will add these records.

 

But I was so happy to finally know what these records look like. I do wish my great-grandfather's file was longer, as it's only eight pages, two of which are scans of the manila folder containing the actual records. But Thomas' file is 117 pages! I've only had time to go through a little of it so far, but what I have seen is fascinating. Over and over again, auditor reports of the various stations mentioned that Thomas was considered competent for a more responsible position. On the other hand, the file also contains a letter stating Thomas was suspended for five days due to leaving his telegraph station to get a drink of water - the last line of the letter states "Your excuse that there was no water in the house and you wanted a drink at that particular time is no excuse whatever."

 

I love living and researching in this digital age, when we have so much information available, and more coming online all the time. I can't wait to see what else I find in these files!

Military Monday - Honoring the servicemen in my family

With today being Memorial Day, people everywhere are honoring the members of our military who gave their lives protecting and defending our country. I am lucky enough to not have lost any family members or direct ancestors (that I know of so far) while in the service of my country, but I do want to take a moment to pay tribute to those in my family who have served in the armed forces. The military is what it is because of the men and women who serve in it, and these men pictured below are all fine examples of what makes America's military the best in the world.



Alexander B. Shute - Army, Civil War



Paul Groff - Army, Mexican War 



Fred Gibson - Marines, WWII

Douglas Redcord - Warrant Officer, WWII

Jim Harris Sr. - Navy, WWII

Jim Crawford - Navy, Korean War

Jim Harris Jr. - Army, Korean War

Tom Bergstad - Navy, Korean War

David Gibson - Navy, Vietnam War



Randy Gibson - Navy, Vietnam War

Richard McFarland - Air Force, Cold War

Travis Smith - Army, Iraq War

Why my genealogy is so awesomely hard to trace - part 1

As you've probably noticed lately, my posts (and the research behind them) have been pretty random in terms of content. That's because I'm having a hard time pinning down what lines to research and what I want to know about them. I thought I'd post about each of my lines and try to sum up what I know about them, what I still need to look into, and maybe (gasp) pick a line to work on for a while. This may end up covering multiple posts, since my writing time (and attention span) are limited. Here goes.

1. Gibson - My Gibson line stops at John Gibson, b. 1850 in New Brunswick, Canada, and his in-laws Dennis Cain and Catherine (Mulhearn) Cain, immigrants from Ireland who married in New Brunswick. I would LOVE to find out where in Ireland they came from, but so far my attempts have been unsuccessful. I've gone so far as to apply to be on Genealogy Roadshow to help me track down my Irish roots on this line. I'd hire a specialist if I had the money. For this branch of my family tree, I think I need to write to the Montana Historical Society and the genealogy society or historical society of New Brunswick and see what they have on John and Dennis. I know the Montana Historical Society charges for lookups, so it might be cheaper to join for a year and then request research, or to have a Montana-based relative submit it for me (they charge less for residents).

2. Joseph - When I started researching my family history, Samuel Joseph, my grandpa Fred Gibson's maternal grandfather, was my brick wall. We didn't even know the name of Sam's wife. Now we know her name - Pauline Rosen - as well as the names of two other wives that no one in my family knew about, Elizabeth Ackermann and Julianna (Kublick) Lorenz. I've also got names and some info on all four of Sam's grandparents. What I need to do next is order the FHL microfilms for the parish in Poland where the Josephs are from and see what else I can find in there. I saw a lot of people named Arendt in connection with the Joseph records I found there, and I want to see if the Arendts and the Josephs are related.

3. Wagner - A few years ago, a friend of mine was able to gather some info on the Wagners in Chicago for me, which helped me flesh out the Wagners of my 2nd-great-grandfather Charles Wagner's generation. I'd like to revisit that info, go over it and make sure it all fits as neatly as it should. I'd also like to see if I can really, officially jump the pond and trace them back to their supposed origins in Mecklenberg.

4. Shute - One of my long-standing goals is to very the info I found on the Shutes on FamilySearch years ago when I first got started. It supposedly goes back hundreds of years, and since I don't have as much experience dealing with pre-1850 sources, I've put it off and put it off. One day I will get around to it though!

5. Groff - Thanks to the military records at Fold3.com, I found some letters written by and on behalf of my ancestors Paul Groff, as well as one that was written by his mother, Hannah (the only source I have for her name at this point). These documents say Paul came from Monroe County, New York, and that his mother lived in Michigan while Paul was in the Army. I haven't really followed up with those leads yet. I'd love to push that line further back, and having his mother and a brother's name (Isaac) will hopefully help.

6. Zitzmann - When my great-great-grandmother Maria Zitzmann came to the US from Europe, she forbid her girls to speak German or say anything about where they had come from. I thought for years I'd never be able to learn where they were from or anything about her ancestry. However, thanks to DNA testing, mailing lists, and especially the help of some very, very, very helpful people found through both, I've taken my Zitzmann ancestry back to the 1700s and even 1600s in some lines. I do need to flesh out the families, some of them just have my direct ancestor, a parent or two, and that's it. I would like to translate (or have someone else translate) the documents I have so far collected. That's a task a bit beyond me though, I still have trouble with the old German script, and don't know German well enough to recognize words that are written poorly. Still, it could be very educational to even make the attempt.

Well, that about covers what I'd like to do with the research on my father's side. I'll go through my maternal lines in the next post.