Real Time

So I thought I'd post this link to an article about living relative (it's not all about the past), whom I've never met. Daryl is a 1rst cousin once removed. My Mothers cousin, she remembers him well growing up. He sounds like quite the adrenaline junky, and per my mom has been since boyhood :P

On a different note, we are beginning to wonder if there may be a genetic link to Parkinsons in that side of my family. There are lots of interesting things that have come up in this journey.

http://www.adn.com/2009/02/07/683375/an-alaska-life-lived-large.html

Family Ties

Well Hello! After a very long break for an eventful summer and fall, it's good to be back working on this project and to have some exciting things to share. This is definitely an ongoing process and you never know whats going to happen.

Over Christmas I chatted with my mother a bit about her family, and got some cousins info recorded in my tree for her side. I also checked back in with her brother, who is very kindly trying to connect with a branch of the family I have no connections with at all.

But I think the most exciting breakthrough occurred when I started searching my paternal grandmother Elsie's family again. Its not such a big world after all.

So I came across some mention of our family Beise, in a google search, on a rootsweb message board, from 10 years ago! Honestly I don't know how I missed them before but that's another story. Anyway I went ahead, took a shot in the dark, and answered the posts and sent off an e-mail as well..... within an hour she answered back! This has been awesome. First check out the pics of my GG-Grandparents


My Paternal Grandmothers Maternal Grandpa, Carl Beise, is above and her Grandmother, Wilhemina Pattis Beise, and aunt Ida Pattis Beise, are to the right. Its funny on first glimpse I was very happy to receive these pictures but they aren't the greatest quality. Then I sent them to my oldest brother and he said hey! That looks like me. Looking again I really can see him in my GG-Grandpa. Now watch, he was talking bout my GG-Grandma and her daughter-in-law (and niece actually). Pictures are like that I think.

So Marilyn, the distant cousin I ran into online, has been researching for quite some time and was able to use LDS resources to track down the little town in what was once Pomerania and is now Poland, our shared family, Carl and Wilhemina (pictured) came from, and she was able to study them as far back as they were available. I think I blogged about the class I took on this process. I actually hadn't gotten to this yet. They came across in 1892 with 4 children (according to Marylin they lost a little girl on the way), so only 3 made it to adulthood. We lucked out really, that the records were even on microfilm to study, and I have now ordered them to view myself. But it gets even better. She went over to Poland and to the village, and amazingly the church survived WWII. She sent pics of this as well.





I in turn have been able to share with her census information I've found on Ancestry.com that she didn't have. It's been great exchanging information with someone so enthusiastic... and closer to the sources, she was alive when Wilhemina passed. She has also inspired me to get over to the local Family Search Library and order those records and search for my Great Grandpa Fred Matthies church records from Germany/Pomerania. I have determined the village, but I am unfortunately not having any luck, so far, finding them in the LDS microfilms. It may be that the records aren't available at all, but I am inspired to go on :)