Family History thru the Alphabet

G is for Guernsey County, Ohio

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Back to my “Family History from A to Z” series…

I’ve picked up my genealogy work after several years of sidelining it. I signed up for a SLIG 2025 (virtual) class on advanced methodology to be held in January, a second SLIG virtual class on writing to take place in February and March (weekly). Finally, most recently the Research Like a Pro e-course taught by the ladies at FamilyLocket.com after I first read their books at the library, and then bought the Kindle versions.

For the e-course, I am writing up research on my finding the father of my 3G grandmother Hannah (Hill) Englehart. I actually did the research years ago, came up with a father candidate, and that candidate (Andrew Hill) was ultimately validated via DNA. But I have only a research log, some scraps of notes, and skeletal citations, so I decided this would be a good project for this class to get me back in gear.

And one of the steps I’ve taken in the e-course — and part of the Research Like a Pro process — is to create a locality guide for my main research area. Because my 3G grandmother Hannah (Hill) Englehart was married in Guernsey County, Ohio (and apparently grew up there), I created a locality guide for that county. Additions to it are ongoing but what I have is below.

Guernsey County, Ohio Locality Guide

Prepared for Identifying the father of Hannah Hill Research Project by Cathy Dempsey; created 18 October 2024 (from a template created by familylocket.com

Background

Quick Facts

  • County Seat: Cambridge
  • Named for the Isle of Guernsey in English Channel, as many original settlers came from Guernsey
  • Formed 10 March 1810, from portions of Muskingum and Belmont counties
  • Ohio became a state on March 1, 1803, and was formed from part of the Northwest Territory (which was formed in 1787).
  • Countywide marriage and court records began in 1810, birth and death in 1867
  • Statewide birth and death records began in 1908
  • Ohio is a State Land State

Online Research Guides

Guernsey County, Ohio  – Family Search wiki

Guernsey County, Ohio: Family History & Genealogy, Census, Birth, Marriage, Death Vital Records & More – Linkpendium

Guernsey County Genealogy Guide – Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness

Guernsey_County,_Ohio (Wikipedia)  – Wikipedia

Archive Grid  ArchiveGrid is a collection of millions of archival material descriptions, including MARC records from WorldCat and finding aids harvested from the web.  

Geography and Maps

In 1851, lost Buffalo, Beaver, Olive and Seneca townships in the creation of Noble County to the south of Guernsey.

Neighboring Counties:  Coshocton (northwest), Tuscarawas (north), Harrison (northeast), Belmont (east), Noble (south), Muskingum (southwest/west)

Maps and Gazetteers:

Timeline of Major Events

Timeline of the area including major government changes and events

Ohio: Individual County Chronologies Newberry Library, 2007

The Historical Development of Guernsey County and Its Townships  Anderson, Scott C. R.  (USGennet.org)

History

History of settlement, links to history articles and books about the locality, major periods, military engagements,

Migration Routes

Describe main migration routes through your locality and link to maps and articles about the subject.

Principal Routes of Trade and Migration, 1840–1850  (accessed 18 October 2024)

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/United_States_Internal_Migration (access 18 Oct 2024)

Law and Government

Old books that have been digitized (via Google Books, Internet Archive, Geneanet, etc.) that contain the laws and statues of the particular locality that you are researching; blog posts and articles about laws in your locality (check out the Legal Genealogist blog and library websites)

Libraries and Archives

Guernsey County
Administration Building
801 E. Wheeling Avenue
Cambridge, Ohio 43725-2335
Phone: 740-432-9230
Guernsey County Website

Guernsey County District Public Library 63500 Byesville Road
Cambridge, OH 43725

The Digital Archives of Guernsey Memorial Library

The Samuel D. Isaly Library  Bellville, Ohio [library of the OGS]

Ohio History Connection Archives & Library  Columbus, Ohio  [formerly Ohio Historical Society]

National Archives at Chicago    Serves Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. 

Ohio State Archives

Genealogical Societies and Publications

Guernsey County Genealogical Society [Guernsey County Chapter of OGS]  Cambridge, Ohio

Ohio Genealogical Society   Bellville, Ohio

Record Loss

No known record loss.

Local History

Guernsey County History Museum Flickr Account: People  Guernsey County Historical Society

Guernsey County History Museum Flickr Account: Township Plats  Guernsey County Historical Society  (The images in this album are derived from a plat scan made available to the public by the Library of Congress)

Sarchet, Cyrus P.B.; History of Guernsey County, Ohio, (Indianapolis, Indiana: B.F. Bowen and Co., 1911). Volume 1 online at FamilySearch Digital Library, Internet Archive; Volume 2 online at FamilySearch Digital Library, Google Books

Wolfe, William G.; Stories of Guernsey County, Ohio: History of an Average Ohio County, (Cambridge, Ohio: W.G. Wolfe, 1943). Online at FamilySearch Digital Library

Reference Books

Additional books pertaining to research in this locality.

Record Collections

General Collections

Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, MyHeritage.com, FindMyPast.com etc. catalog titles about the locality

United States Record Finder on familysearch.org

Bible Records and Compiled Genealogies

Links to websites that have Bible records for the locality

Ohio Bible Records on familysearch.org

Cemetery Records

Links to cemetery records in the locality

Census Records and Substitutes

Links to different types of censuses: federal, state, town, colonial, territorial, census substitutes, etc.

United States Federal Census 1820 > Ohio > Guernsey

United States Federal Census 1830

Church Records

List the various denominations and where their records are kept.

Ohio Church Records — a general information page on familysearch.org

Determining the Church Your Ancestor Attended familysearch.org

Ohio, Church and Civil Births and Baptisms, 1765-1947  familysearch.org

Court Records

Links to court record collections and descriptions of what they contain

Guernsey County Clerk of Courts: Location of Court Records (Case Files, Docket appearances, etc.) PDF  — Guernsey County Clerk of Courts

Guernsey County Clerk of Courts homepage

Court records, 1810-1862 [Court of Common Pleas]  familysearch.org

Court records, 1811-1856 [Ohio Supreme Court]  familysearch.org

Ohio, Guernsey County, Common Pleas Journal and appearance dockets  [1829 – 1990] familysearch.org

Ohio, Guernsey County, Common Pleas Journal and appearance dockets, 1810-1938 at familysearch.org

Ethnic Records

List the various ethnic groups in the locality and what unique record collections are available about them.

Immigration and Naturalization

Describe immigration in the locality and link to the associated record collections.

Land Records

Land records were kept as of 1802

Ohio Land and Property  familysearch.org wiki

The Official Ohio Lands Book (pdf format)  Knepper, George W., pub. By Ohio State Auditor Office, 2002

The Northwest and the Ordinances, 1783-1858  Library of Congress (summarized history)

Land Ordinance of 1785  wikipedia.org

Northwest Ordinance of 1787  wikipedia.org

Guernsey County Recorder  – has land records

Deed records, 1810-1901; index, 1802-1968   familysearch.org

Guernsey County Township Maps  

Legislative Records

Link to collections about legislative records, if applicable, i.e. Virginia’s legislative petitions.

Military Records

Colonial, militia, war, regimental histories, etc.

Newspapers and Directories

Link to websites which contain digitized newspapers for your locality or how to find them if they aren’t digitized.

UF Digital Collections: Guernsey County (Ohio) Newspapers [early 20th century only]

The Digital Archives of Guernsey Memorial Library   OCR text is poor, with no option to fix as with CDNC. However, clicking on the link available allows you to see a digitized mage of the page.

Ohio Newspaper Archives 1795-2021  genealogybank.com

Probate Records

Link to record collections about will administration, probate, etc.

Probate records began to be kept as of 1812.

Ohio Probate Records, 1789-1996  familysearch.org    “Probate records and estate files from county courthouses in Ohio. The content and time period varies by county.”

Administration and execution dockets, 1812-1992  Probate Court (Guernsey County) on familysearch.org

Vital Records (Birth, Marriage, Death)

List the start of registration for birth, marriage, and death records. List any Gretna greens.

Birth and death records kept at the county-level as of 1867.  Marriage records kept as of 1810.

Birth records v. 1-3, 1867-1909, 1941-1963 Guernsey County Probate Judge; familysearch.org

Marriage records, 1810-1951, 1992-1997; index to marriages, ca. 1810-1930 Guernsey County Probate Court; familysearch.org

Death records, 1867-1960 Guernsey County Probate Judge; familysearch.org

Tax Records

Link to tax record collections, personal property tax, land tax, etc.

Guernsey County, OH Tax Duplicates 1816-1832  Guernsey County, Ohio Auditor. Familysearch.org

F is for Future Research Plans: Blalock/Blaylock

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Margaret [J?] (Blalock) Copple (b. ca 1810 in Kentucky – d. 1892 in Newton County, Missouri) was one of my 4th-great grandmothers, and is a “dead end” ancestor.  I do not know her parents, but I do have some leads.  I really need to make finding her parents one of my future research goals – and the “future” is arriving now, in 2020.

What do I know about her right now?  And what leads do I have?

The Basics, Documented (in my Ancestry tree)

  • Born in Kentucky (per her responses on census records) – where exactly I don’t know.
  • Was in Washington County, Indiana by December 1827, when she married Jacob Copple on 6 December
  • Not (yet) found in the 1830 census. Presumably in Indiana.
  • Was in Vigo County, Indiana at the 1840 census
  • Was in Newton County, Missouri at the 1850 census
  • Was in Newton County, Missouri at the 1860 census
  • Not found in 1870 census for either Newton or Jasper counties
  • In Newton County, Missouri in 1871, as administrator of her late husband’s estate
  • Reportedly died in 1892 in Newton (or Jasper) County, Missouri
  • Is buried in Jasper County, Missouri

Other Clues

  • Two men, a Jeremiah Blalock and a Thomas Blalock, both old enough to be Margaret’s father, were in Washington County, Indiana in 1830.  They lived next to each other.
  • A Jeremiah Blalock married a Louisa Dosier in 1835 in Vigo County, Indiana — the same county Margaret lived in at the 1840 census.
  • A “Jer [for Jeremiah?] Blalock” lived in Lancaster, Garrard County, Kentucky in 1810.  A female < 9 years old resided in the household.  Could this be Margaret?  A “Jer Blalock” lived in Rockcastle County, Kentucky in 1820.  In that household was a female 0-9 years, and a female 10-15.  Could the 10-15 year old female be Margaret?
  • A David M Blalock married Lucy Carey in Washington County, Indiana in 1831.  Lucy Carey and David have at least 4 children before Lucy dies ca. 1840.
  • Lucy Carey was the daughter of John Carey and Polly Hungate.
  • David M Blalock married Mary “Polly” Norton in 1841.  They had a daughter Margaret Jane.  All are on the 1850 census.  David was of an age to be a possible brother of Margaret (Blalock) Copple.
  • David apparently died ca. 1853 because Polly (Norton) (Blalock) marries again ca. 1854.
  • Andrew J Blalock, son of David and Lucy and possible nephew of Margaret (Blalock) Copple, lived in a Hungate household in 1860 in Washington County, Indiana.
  • The youngest son of David M Blalock, his namesake, born ca. 1850, was married in 1879 in Jasper County, Missouri.  What brought him south to Missouri?  Could it have been a family connection to a paternal aunt and cousins?

DNA Clues

Through DNA clustering tools, I’ve been able to determine that Mom (and I) have segments on chr 9 and chr 13 which are almost certainly inherited from Margaret (Blalock) Copple rather than her husband Jacob.  There is also a third Blalock segment which shows up in clustering tools

Numerous DNA matches of Mom have Blalock/Blaylock in their trees (where trees exist), but there is no consistency in the names and locations, as there was for my Copple line.

Some DNA matches of Mom have Hungates in their trees, and some of those have Hungates living in Washington County, Indiana at the same time Margaret’s family lived there.

A fairly large number of Mom’s DNA matches which cluster in the “Blalock” cluster have a shared common ancestral couple: Thomas Hemphill and Mary Mackie.  Other matches share a common ancestral couple who are Thomas Hemphill’s parents.  If the ages in the trees are to be believed, these couples would be of an age to be Margaret’s grandparents or great-grandparents.  The DNA link may not be with the Hemphill line at all, but without further investigation on my part, I cannot rule it out.

Next Steps
Research all of the Blalocks living in Washington County as of 1830, including census, marriage, land deeds, court records, etc., in particular both Jeremiah and Thomas Blalock.
Continue to attempt to sub-cluster Mom’s matches by Blalock common ancestor, if there is one, focusing particularly on Blalock connections in southern Indiana, and Kentucky.

 

E is for Emigration (from Schleswig-Holstein)

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SS Germania_Norway Heritage

SS Germania (1863) courtesy of Norway Heritage collection.

To the left is a photograph of the SS Germania, the ship Peter Nicholas Holst (my great-great grandfather) sailed on in May 1869 to the USA from Hamburg, Germany.

In the past year or so, I discovered a website listing persons who emigrated from Schleswig-Holstein during the 19th century.  This is a labor of love by a Klaus Struve who lives in Kiel, Germany.

The gist of these abstracted records, from a variety of sources, including Landesarchiv Schleswig, is that Peter Nicholas Holst was the son of Peter (which matches family oral history) and he had two younger brothers, Georg and Johannes (which matches the 1860 Denmark census).  Peter arrived in the U.S. in 1869 on the SS Germania – Hamburg and New York passenger lists confirm this.  Peter was a shoemaker, but also worked as a butcher in his early years in the U.S. in New York

According to the emigration abstracts, Georg (also noted as the son of Peter) stated [1] he would be joining his brother Peter Nicholas; he arrived in New York City in May 1872 [2] on the SS Vandalia.  I have found a possible source for a naturalization record (dated 1894) for Georg – otherwise, exactly nothing.  I do not know what happened to him.  He is not mentioned in Peter’s biography published in An Illustrated History of Sonoma County (pub. 1889).

Georg Holst NYC Passenger List

The youngest son of Peter, named Johannes, received permission to emigrate in 1872 [3].  But he did not sail to the U.S. until May 1873 [4] on the SS Holsatia, where he was going to meet up with his brothers Peter Nicholas and Georg.  As with Georg, I have no idea what happened next for Johannes.

Joh Holst NYC Passenger List

All that said, these abstracts have been fascinating and point to the possibility of other sources within the Schleswig-Holstein archives.  In addition, I may be able to find Johannes and Georg Holst in U.S. newspaper records, New York marriage records, or the 1880 U.S. Federal Census.  They don’t appear to have gone out to Sonoma County with Peter and Caroline, but did Peter and Caroline go out west simply because her brothers were already out there?  Did Peter’s brothers remain in New York / Connecticut?  Could more of Peter’s family (specifically, maternal cousins) have come to the U.S. as well?

More to research, now that I know Peter had brothers and that they actually did arrive in America…

[1]https://www.rootdigger.de/Names/H-file.pdf
[2] Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897, microfilm publication M237, 675 rolls (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 358, 20 May 1872, SS Vandalia, List 455, passenger 526, Georg Holst; digital images, “New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7488/ : viewed 27 Dec 2019), image 421.
[3]https://www.rootdigger.de/Names/H-file.pdf
[4] Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897, microfilm publication M237, 675 rolls (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 375, 15 May 1873, SS Holsatia, List 427, passenger 308, Joh. Holst; digital images, “New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7488/ : viewed 27 Dec 2019), image 14.

D is for my Danish roots

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Sometimes when you put things off, it is all to the good because when you get back to it, circumstances have changed in a positive way.

In this case, more and more Schleswig-Holstein records have come online in recent years — and someone else has done the transcription of the Danish/Low German handwriting!

Thanks to the surge of online documents in the past few years, I’ve been able to extend my Danish great-grandfather’s maternal line and paternal line [Ahnentafel 28/29 on my pedigree].  This great-granddad is my mother’s maternal grandfather, a first-generation American.

Caroline Thomsen Ancestors

My 2nd great grandma Caroline (Thomsen) Holst’s ancestors

Peter Holst Ancestors

My 2nd great grandfather Peter Nicholas Holst’s ancestors

One site I’ve used in recent years is Danish Family Search, wherein volunteers are transcribing the various censuses taken in Denmark.  And the duchy of Slesvig (my ancestral home) was part of Denmark until Bismarck invaded Slesvig in 1864 and, after the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, the territory was annexed by Prussia. [1]

Members of my own family headed to the United States during the decade or so, with my 3rd great grandparents, Johann Carl Thomsen and Maria Erichsen, both in their late 50’s starting all over leaving their home behind for the hills and valleys of Sonoma County, California.

With respect to https://www.danishfamilysearch.com, I have built out a tree of my Danish line and added census records, where available, to it.  In some cases, the census records were already transcribed by volunteers.  More recently, I’ve been able to find Danish censuses online at FamilySearch.org [2] [3] and MyHeritage.com; those also have been transcribed.  Then I do a search at DanishFamilySearch, and add the applicable census to my family tree there, as well as doing a partial transcription of my own family’s household.

 

Highlighted in yellow above is Carolina Margaretha Thomsen, aged 2, with her mother Maria Erichsen, aged 23, and her father Johann Carl Thomsen, aged 25.

Peter Holst Household 1855

Above is a screen shot of the 1855 Denmark census for Peter Nicolai Holst, aged 8, with his younger Georg, aged 1, his mother Anna Dorothea Johannsen, aged 32, and his father Peter Holst, aged 34.  

It’s certainly much easier to find my ancestral households now than 2 – 3 years ago, which is when I first began using DanishFamilySearch.  If you haven’t been to DanishFamilySearch, I’ll walk you through the site below.  Regions other than Slesvig-Holsten are likely to have more records (e.g. church books) available, simply because they are in the Danish Archives.  For Slesvig-Holsten, you also have to research in German archives.  You would select the county of interest on the main page — it’s a clickable link.

DanishFamilySearch1

The screen below shows my family database entry for Claus Clausen, my 5th great grandfather.  Possible censuses available — not all are complete, nor all applicable for Slesvig-Holsten — are shown in the red boxes.  The green box means I have attached the 1803 census to Claus Clausen’s record.  (Clearly, as always with genealogy, I worked backwards to get to this point.)

ClausClausen1

This screen shot shows all of Claus Clausen’s children as of the 1803 census.  If there were more, I won’t find them on the census, as the next available census is from 1835.  Anna Christina Johannsen is highlighted.  Johannsen is Anna’s married name.

ClausClausen_daughter

For those records which are pre-transcribed, the screen looks like this.  You do a typical search, filtering in what you know of your ancestor including first name, last name, age, county, administrative region and parish.   Below is Claus Clausen’s household in 1803.  They lived in Wees, within the Munkbrarup parish, in Flensbourg, in Slesvig-Holsten.  (Note that at the bottom is a reference to the Danish Archives online where the original record came from.)

ClausClausen_transcribed census

A Google Maps search of Wees, Germany shows the general location.

Wees Germany

Wees Germany 2

Grundhof (3 miles from the sea) and Dollerup, highlighted, are the hometown villages for another ancestral line.

The red pin below denotes Wees.  The black line just to the left represents the Denmark / Germany border.  The bays and fjords near Wees are part of the Baltic Sea. The city of Hamburg, which was the emigration point for my ancestors, is well south of this land area.

Wees Germany 3

A useful link for Danish censuses is:  https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Denmark_Census , which includes links to the transcribed censuses on MyHeritage.com

I have also used Arbeitskreis Volkszahl-Register (http://www.akvz.de/index.html) in the past, but am currently struggling to properly query records which I have screen prints for, so something has changed in the past 2 years.  This group, too, is transcribing census and other records stored in Schleswig-Holstein archives in Germany.

What’s been most fascinating to me is to discover the names of the towns and parishes where my ancestors came from; I suppose the next step is to comb through church records, if available online.

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “History of Schleswig-Holstein,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, rev. 4 Nov 2019;
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Schleswig-Holstein : accessed December 23, 2019).

[2] “Denmark Census, 1845,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QLRV-3XYS : 23 Dec 2019), Johann Carl Thomsen in entry for Hans Scholott, Danmark; from “Denmark Census, 1845,” database and images, MyHeritage ( https://www.myheritage.com : 2016), film s00002; citing household 000275750, Rigsarkivet, København (The Danish National Archives), Copenhagen; FHL microfilm.

[3] “Denmark Census, 1855,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QLD3-DZWV : 23 Dec 2019), Peter Nicolai Holst, Flensborg, Slesvig, Danmark; from “Denmark Census, 1855,” database and images, MyHeritage ( https://www.myheritage.com : 2016), film s00003; citing household 00000343271, Rigsarkivet, København (The Danish National Archives), Copenhagen; FHL microfilm.

 

C is for County Clare

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My great-great grandmother, Hanora Josephine (McDermott) Colbert (c 1854 – 1892) was a native of County Clare, Ireland.  She was the daughter of Cornelius McDermott (c 1827 – 1894) and Catherine (Breen) McDermott (c 1828 – 1909), both natives of County Clare.

So, naturally, when my husband and I visited Ireland in May 2016, we stopped in County Clare.  Hanora, pictured below, was born in the town of Cooraclare, in her parents’ house, called Clonredden.  When Hubby and I reached the town of Cooraclare, I stopped in at the post office, and said I was the 3rd-great granddaughter of Con McDermott, principal of Cooraclare National School.  One of the women there took me around the town, as well as to the local cemetery and to the house (still standing, but in ruined condition) where Hanora was born.

Where is Cooraclare?

Cooraclare_Location_GoogleMap

NoraMcDermott2

Hanora McDermott Colbert

IMAG0809

Clonredden, May 2016

The back of the house is shown to the right.

IMAG0792

The main street of Cooraclare, Co. Clare, Ireland

We also visited the cemetery where Hanora’s parents are buried.   Con’s tombstone is on the left; a general shot of the cemetery itself is on the right.

While in County Clare, we also visited the Burren.  Burren is the Anglicized version of the Irish word Boireann meaning “great rock” [1].   It’s a bleak and stony landscape, created from glacial karst [2] and was possibly the inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. [3]

 
[1] Wikipedia contributors, “The Burren,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, rev. 23 Oct 2019; (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Burren&oldid=922588482 : accessed 17 Nov, 2019).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Tourism Ireland, “Attractions: Historic Ireland — The Burren and Tolkien,”(https://www.ireland.com/en-us/what-is-available/attractions-built-heritage/historic-ireland/articles/burren-and-tolkien/ : accessed 17 Nov, 2019).

B is for (genealogy) Books

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A few of my go-to genealogy books (non-affiliate links):

The Family Tree Problem Solver (Revised 1st Edition), 2011, Marsha Hoffman Rising, CG, FASG

Evidence Explained: History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, 3rd edition (Revised), 2017, Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, FASG, ed.

books-2158737_640

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy, 4th edition , 2017, Val Greenwood

Genetic Genealogy

Advanced Genetic Genealogy: Techniques and Case Studies , 2019, by Debbie Parker Wayne

Genetic Genealogy in Practice, 2016, Blaine Bettinger and Debbie Parker Wayne

Writing it all Up

Mastering Genealogical Documentation , 2017, Thomas W. Jones

Mastering Genealogical Proof, 2013, Thomas W. Jones

Specialty

A Brief History of Everyone who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through our Genes, paperback edition, 2018, Adam Rutherford

Raking the Ashes: Genealogical Strategies for pre-1906 San Francisco Research, 2nd edition , 2012, Nancy Simons Peterson

Tracing Your Irish Ancestors: The Complete Guide, 4th edition , 2012, John Grenham

The Family Tree Italian Genealogy Guide: How to Trace Your Family Tree in Italy, 2017, Melanie D. Holtz

What about you?  Any favorites not on this list?  Anyone know of some good German ancestry books?  Or Danish ancestry, for that matter?

A is for Anamnesis

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Just what is anamnesis anyway?

Vocabulary.com defines “anamnesis” as “the ability to recall past occurrences” or “memory”.  The Greeks also considered memories from one’s past lives as part of the concept – but I’m playing fast and loose with their concept of “past lives”.

alphabet-2034761_640_A

Image by JLG from
Pixabay

Instead of reincarnation, by “past lives”, I mean those lives in the past — of my own ancestors.

I am “remembering” ancestral lives and ancestral places by writing down what I know of them at this point in time.

To that end, I’ll be blogging a series of posts from A to Z — “Family History from A to Z”, an idea I got from browsing several different blogs. (You can check out those blogs here, here and here)

This particular series will focus largely on locations where different branches of my family resided.