Do You Know Anything About Your Great Grandparents?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I knew one set out of four, my mother’s father’s parents. They lived into their 90’s, my great-grandmother her high 90’s, I was a teen when she died. When I was young, they lived on a plot of land with their small house, plus an outhouse, although I think they had running water to the kitchen sink, a wood-burning stove, and they raised a few goats for their milk. They had both come out West (to Oregon) when they were children, and met there. They had had twin boys, but one of them died (the other was my grandfather). They later had another son, who was around but we seldom saw him or his family for some reason.

Both came from farming families. I suspect they didn’t have a lot of education. I don’t know precisely how my great-grandfather supported his family, whether by farming his own property, working on someone else’s farm (seems the most likely to me) or doing some other work. My mother had to go stay with them for a year or two during the depression as a 7 or 8 year old when her family broke up temporarily, and she hated it. I don’t know if she hated the place, or the situation of being away from her parents.

That’s it, that’s all I know about them. I do have some scattered facts about some of the other GGP’s but not much.

22

Maternal great-grandparents, Grandma’s parents: Grandma’s dad died when she was six, and her mom died when she was 10. She was sent to live with a childless couple in the community who lovingly raised her to adulthood. Both of them passed away when I was a child, but I do remember them. Foster great-grandpa had one of the first auto repair shops in the community.

Maternal great-grandparents, Grandpa’s parents: Emigrated from Prussia in 1876 as young adults and got married in America. Had 12 kids in 15 years; great-grandma died shortly after the last one was born. Great-grandpa died when my Mom was a child, so she hardly knew her grandparents, and obviously I didn’t either.

Paternal great-grandparents, Grandma’s parents: Married in Russia and emigrated in 1874. Borrowed money from relatives in Illinois for the emigration and had to work for two years to pay off the debt. Both died when my Dad was a child. He didn’t talk about them much.

Paternal great-grandparents, Grandpa’s mother: Married her first husband in Russia and emigrated in 1874. Great-grandma, at age 18, gave birth to her second child on the ship crossing the Atlantic. After settling in Kansas, she had two more kids and then her husband died. She remarried and had 7 more kids, the youngest of which was my Grandpa. Grandpa’s dad died when Grandpa was 12, but Great-Grandma lived into her 90s, and Dad remembered her well. Great-grandma is considered a heroine in Dad’s family.

23

On my father’s side, I only know basic data I’ve learned from geneology.

But for my mother’s grandparents, I know a fair amount. One pair I knew personally. The man was the son of Irish immigrants and was quite proud of his heritage - he had shamrocks decorating the house, et cetera. He was a ceramics hobbyist and made little Irish-themed items. His wife was the daughter of German immigrants (that counted as a mixed marriage in those days). He passed away when I was a child, and she continued living on and running their farm until her 80s. She passed away when I was a teen.

I never met my mother’s other grandparents, but apparently, I didn’t miss much. The man was morbidly obese (rare in those days) and not pleasant to be around. The wife was not a particularly happy or pleasant person either. They passed away long before my birth.

24

On my dad’s side I only remember a great-grandmother. She lived with my grandparents and lived to 99. I’ve been told I met some of the others, but they passed before I was creating memories.

I knew all 4 on my mom’s side. One of my g-grandfathers appeared in a Caldecott Award winning children’s book.

25

Maternal great-grand father left England for Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1885, he went with his regiment to Swift Current, Saskatchewan to put down the second Riel Resistance, but his regiment saw no action. Family lore has it his major duty was guarding the stockade, filled with drunken soldiers. Paternal greats immigrated from Russia as German-speaking Catholics. One started a store and wrote some memories up. And that’s it.

26

Do You Know Anything About Your Great Grandparents?

No. I don’t even know their names or who they were, unfortunately. My grandmother on my father’s side was from a small village in Sonora Mexico, but her father and mother? No idea. The same goes with my mother. I know her mother was also from central Mexico somewhere, but her father? I THINK he was from Europe somewhere (Germany maybe, or France?) but don’t know even their names, let alone where they were from or what they did for a living. My family simply doesn’t have anything more than some oral history, and much of it is pretty contradictory and obviously conflated (lots of stuff about us being descended from Maya or Aztec tribes and such).

27

Because I’ve done genealogy research for 20+ years, I know quite a lot about my great grandparents. One was a lawyer and was at the 2nd Battle of Bull Run, where he was captured. Another was a steamboat captain on the Ohio River in the 1860s and later was the Postmaster in Castle Rock, OR. One was a wagonmaker by trade who immigrated to the US from Prussia to settle first in NY and then in Michigan. One of my great-grandmothers was a DAR member.

28

I knew two, on my Mother’s side, & I adored them, & was adored by them.
After Dad’s gas station went bankrupt, we moved into my Grandparent’s house, in the upstairs flat.
I learned to read at 3 & Great-Grandmother (Granny) called me her “Little Professor”.

Granny was Polish, Great-Grandfather was a Swede.

I’d rather spend afternoons with them than anything else, & Christmas & Thanksgiving were the happiest moments of my life.

29

Ya know, it’s sorta refreshing to hear that our ancestors were not always noble, upstanding, daring, dashing do-gooders or heroes, the way Ancestry likes to portray them on their commercials. They were like us, just in a different time, and sometimes they were schmucks.

30

My dad gives us money every year for Christmas. This Christmas he told us that his grandpa would stand up at the end of every Christmas gathering and silently hand everyone (not just kids) $5, which woulda been a hell of a lot in the 50s and 60s. Dad said he would use his money to buy carton of cigarettes once he turned 14.

I know a lot about my dad’s maternal grandparents. His grandma took care of him a lot when he was a kid, as his mother was sick.

I don’t know hardly anything about my mom’s grandparents, as I don’t think she knows much either. They came over from Slovakia.

31

I knew 2 great grandparents and one step great grandmother and step great grandfather. I know some facts about most others, including the purported father of my grandmother, who was illegitimate.

The most “interesting” of my 8 great grandparents (IMHO) would have to be Stefan, an ethnic german who left what is now Croatia (then Austro-Hungarian Empire) back around 1900 to settle in Milwaukee, WI. He ran a tavern and turned it into a speakeasy during prohibition. He made bathtub gin along with wine and beer. He was an alcoholic whom no family member recalled with fondness, but all admitted he was more remote and neglectful rather than actually vindictively interactive. His wife Eva (my great grandmother) predeceased him when their children were quite young and he quickly remarried to provide a caretaker for his kids. Fortunately the new wife (Julia, whom I knew) was kindly and my grandfather and his sister loved her a lot. I remember her living in a nursing home. She spoke only german, but grandpa taught me to say “Ich liebe dich Großmutter”.

Then there was Adriana (whom I knew), who got pregnant at age 16 in the Netherlands while serving as a domestic on a farm, was ostracized for that and took her unhappiness out on her daughter, my grandmother. Adriana went on to marry a good man (Pieter, whom I also knew) who kindly and lovingly accepted said daughter, but did let Adriana ship my grandma off to America with Adriana’s own parents, who emigrated. Grandma was treated more like an indentured servant by her grandparents. Eventually reunited with her mom and stepdad, Grandma and Adriana never got along well. Adriana refused to tell her daughter a thing about her father, until on her deathbed, when she announced his name was Herbert and she’d kept a picture of him all her life, but had just burned it because she knew she was dying.

Interestingly, genealogical research in the Netherlands found records of where Adriana had been employed at age 16, along with the names of other farmhands there. One was named Huibrecht. I learned his last name from that document, but no further trace of him was ever found going forward. Yet. Another mystery to pick at further when I retire.

My great grandfather Henk (whom I knew) from whom I got my surname wasn’t terribly notable. He was a farmer, and was written up in the local newspapers during WW I because he knit dozens of pairs of socks which he sent off to the troops on the front lines. His wife Nellie (my ggm) was locally notable as one of the 25 children which resulted from her father’s marriage to 2 different women (serially, not simultaneously). Nellie herself apparently decided that 5 kids was enough for her. She died before Henk of diabetes. Henk packed it in at age 89, after a hernia repair where he refused to stay in bed, but got up and tore out his stitches and died of complications. Or so the story goes. He was a scary looking old man, sitting in a rocking chair in a back bedroom, with an aroma of chewing tobacco and ammonia emanating from him. Or so he was to my 4 year old self.

One great grandmother Marie was widowed while pregnant with her 2nd child, my grandmother. She refused to remarry or be courted, worked herself near to death to raise her two girls, and died young of heart failure possibly due to prior rheumatic fever. Her husband William (my ggf) died of acute rheumatic fever.

I have at least one photo of all my great grandparents except for Huibrecht.

And that’s more than anybody here wants to know, I’m sure.

32

Going back to great grandparents, on my mother’s side her grandmother was from Ireland and we have a genealogy going back several generations; a couple of years ago one of my nephews went to Ireland and met the relatives there. All we know of Mom’s paternal grandparents is their names and that they came over from Sicily.

On my father’s side, we know his parents came over from Germany (separately, they met and married in Chicago) but know nothing about their families there.

33

Yeah, for sure. My g-grand who was the Civil War veteran was also a womanizer. His wife eventually left him in the Dakota Territory and went home with her kids. He went on with his nomadic ways and finally ended up in California, where he committed suicide with a pistol.

Germany is a tough nut to crack. If your ancestor was not wealthy or not royalty, it can be very difficult to trace them back very far. I had to hire a genealogist living in Germany (who could read old German) to research church records. He was able to get back a few generations and then hit a wall. A lot of births (especially female) weren’t recorded, and many records were destroyed or lost over the centuries.

Even here in the states, female births were not particularly celebrated, as more value was placed on male offspring who could work. Quite often, one can only find out the name of a female ancestor through oblique mention in written records such as wills.

34

If you’re interested in learning more about his Civil War enlistment, Fold3.com (owned by Ancestry.com, and both paid sites) has digitized many/most of the records of Union Civil War soldiers. They also have pension application records, which can be used to order his pension paperwork from the National Archives.

35

These can contain a wealth of information, if you’re lucky. I knew little-to-nothing of my Civil War ancestor and his wife until I unearthed his wife’s pension application. Since she had no record of their marriage, she had to give a deposition recounting their life together. Pure gold for a genealogist and fascinating stuff.

36

Yes, many are full of information available nowhere else. But … I have one 124 page pension application containing nothing except endless back-and-forth between the ancestor and the government as to whether his circulation problems were the result of his service. Aaargghh

37

Through Ancestor.com I was able to find my grandfather’s birth certificate, so I have his date and place of birth. Oddly enough, it shows his mother’s name but not his father’s, despite the fact that according to my father his father was from a well-to-do family. He had migrated to the US in 1901 with $20 (I also found the ship’s manifest). I thought about trying to find a German genealogist to find out more info, but haven’t gotten around to it.

38

My great great grandfather, on my father’s side, went on a ride through Georgia with his buddy Sherman. He wrote letters home to his wife and young son. Somehow those letters wound up in the collection of a small museum in Texas, near Dallas. One of the volunteers at the museum became intrigued by the letters, transcribed them into digital format, and also contacted the public library in the town where g-g-grandpa lived. One of the volunteers at that library had dated my father in high school, and contacted us with the news. Dad and I visited the library one time, saw the letters, and also got a digital copy, which I still have.

Great great grandfather lived long enough to teach a battle cry to the doughboys going off to France in WWI, for them to shout as they went “over the top.”

39

I really envy you guys who have such robust family histories and actually knew your great grandparents. Most of what I know about my own family comes from DNA testing.

40

All four of my great grandfathers and two of my great grandmothers were dead by the time my parents were born.

And my parents were quite young when the other two great grandmothers died. They were in a different country as well, so never knew them.

In our culture in the 19th and early 20th centuries, men married in their 40s or 50s women in their early 20s at the latest. My maternal grandmother was 24, my maternal grandfather was 47. My grandmother was in danger of aging out as marriage material!

So my parents paternal grandfathers would have both been over a 100 when my parents were born. Their maternal grandfathers and paternal grandmothers would have been in their 80s, and people generally didn’t live that long in those days in that socio-economic class.

In any case my parents were separated from their grandparents by internal migration of my grandparents (village to far away city) and then the partition of India.