Holst

In Memoriam — Elizabeth (Holst) Diamantini

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Today, August 17, 2020, it is 80 years since my grandmother died at the tender age of 26 — an age I reached and passed decades ago.   Such a short life! 

My heart hurts for my mother, who was only a toddler and never got to know her mother, and my heart hurts for my grandfather who was only 25 when he lost his wife.  I wrote about her here in this blog.

In the photo below, Elizabeth is the second from the left amongst her high school friends, and, to my mind, the resemblance between her and my own mother is quite strong.

Eliz with hs classmates

In the photo below, she and my grandfather at the service station in Tracy, California, that my grandfather managed.  It was probably taken in the late 1930s.

My Maternal Grandparents

Finally, this photo is a copy of the one that resided on my mother’s dresser when I was growing up, and is the picture that immediately comes to mind whenever I think of my grandmother.

Eliz age 17 - Copy

May you Rest in Peace, Elizabeth, and may we someday meet across the veil.

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.

 

Throwback Thursdays #tbt #wedding – My Maternal Grandparents

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This photo is of my mother’s parents on their wedding day in Healdsburg, Sonoma, California on 22 November 1934.  My grandmother Elizabeth was just 20 years old (as of June that year) and my grandfather James was also 20 (as of October that year).

I believe they are standing in front of my great-grandparents’ house off Dry Creek Road, just west of Healdsburg.  The house was originally built by my great-great granddad Peter Holst after he and his wife Caroline and little girl Annie arrived in the area circa 1877 from where they had lived in Connecticut.

Throwback Thursdays #tbt – Christian Fredson and family

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Christian Alfred Fredson (aka Chris) was one of my relatives on my Danish side, related to me through my maternal grandmother’s father.  In fact, my great-grandpa Charlie Holst was a first cousin of Chris.

In this photo, on the front porch of their home in Geyserville, Sonoma County, California — I do not know if the house is still standing — Chris is the young man on the left.  He was born in 1891, a few years after my great-grandfather, and is probably in his late 20’s in this photo.

His mother, Sophie (Thomsen) Fredson is to Chris’ left.  Sophie was my great-grandfather Charlie’s maternal aunt, a younger sister of Caroline (Thomsen) Holst.  Sophie was born in 1860 in the Danish duchy of Slesvig, just a few years before Bismarck invaded, and that land became part of what is now Germany.  (Sophie died in 1924; therefore this photo was taken no later than that year.)

Fredson2400dpi

Seated on the steps is Chris’ wife Geneva (Eagle)Fredson (1891-1973).  Next to Geneva is their first-born son, Leonard, who was born in 1914, and looks to be about 2 years old (so the photo was likely taken around 1916.)

Behind Geneva and Leonard are 3 older adults.  I am presuming that the man with white whiskers and the woman are Geneva’s parents, but cannot confirm that.  The man wearing suspenders and seated in what might be a rocking chair is Israel Fredson.  He was Chris’s dad, born in Sweden (somewhere!) in 1850.

Chris Fredson had an older sister, Hilda, who never married, and an older brother Charles, who had one daughter.  Chris and Geneva had 3 children: the aforementioned Leonard, a daughter Anna (1918-1925), and a son Donald (1919-2007).

I’d Like to Meet… a miscellany, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, #6

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Prompt for 2019, week 4 — I’d Like to Meet…

Just as an aside, since I started the 52 Ancestors prompt series back in October, I’m off kilter with the “official” 2019 calendar, and mixing / matching prompts from this year and last year. 

The current week’s prompt led me to realize that I don’t have just one ancestor I’d like to meet.  It’s a cop-out, though, to say I want to meet them all (although, of course, I would — back through the mists of time), so I’ll list just a few back through the generations and why I’d particularly like to meet them.

  1. Elizabeth (Holst) Diamantini,  my maternal grandmother.  I wrote about her here.  The reason I want to meet her is the most basic — of my 4 grandparents, she is the one I never knew.  My mother barely knew her either, given that my mother was just a toddler when my grandmother died.  It’s fair to say that my foray into genealogy started here — trying to answer questions I had, and my mother herself had.
  2. Eileen (Houlihan) Colbert, my paternal great-grandmother.  She died in 1911[1], the first of my great-grandparents to die.  She was only 34 years old at her death in San Francisco, and was a native of Athea, Co. Limerick, Ireland[2].  She left behind a sorrowing husband, and four children (three daughters and a son) all of whom were under the age of ten.  Eileen was my dad’s own maternal grandmother; his mother, like my own, was a toddler when her mother died. 
    Thus my reasons for wanting to meet Eileen mirror my reasons for wanting to meet Elizabeth.
  3. Caterina (Cammoranesi) Bolognesi, born ca. 1847 likely in Ascoli, Ascoli Piceno, Marche, Italy, died ca. 1915 in the same place[3].  She is one of my eight great-great grandmothers.  Why do I want to meet her?  Because she is only a name and approximate birth date and death date.  I know nothing of her at all, have no photo, don’t know her parents or her siblings.  I do not know anything about her life, or life in general for residents, in the province of Marche in the 19th century.  Without any “flesh” she is barely even “bones” to me.  Yet she and I share a name, although I was not named for her.
  4. My 3rd great-grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Copple (born ca. 1829 Washington County, Indiana – died 1911 Yavapai County, Arizona)[4].  Ben married Phoebe Harvey in 1851 in Jasper County, Missouri[5], and they moved west to California by 1861, the parents of four (possibly five) daughters.  Phoebe died, apparently in childbirth, and Ben ditched his girls, leaving them to be raised by strangers in and around Healdsburg, Sonoma, California.  Ben hung out in Mendocino County (adjacent to Sonoma County to the north) for about a decade and then headed down to Arizona, where he lived out his life in and around Cornville, Prescott and Sedona.  He married again[6], and had 3 sons[7]. 
    I would like to meet him to better understand why he made the choices he did.  As tempting as it is for me, in 2019, to think of him as abandoning his girls, I know times and mores were different back then.  And I’ve found some leads (through Healdsburg-area newspapers) that seem to point to his daughters having some contact with him[8], at least in their adult years.
  5. My 4th great-grandmother, Margaret (Blalock) Copple (born ca. 1810 in Kentucky, died 1892 in Jasper County or Newton County, Missouri)[9].  Margaret was the mother of Ben Franklin Copple and his younger siblings.  But that’s not why I want to meet her.  When I was researching Jacob Copple, her husband, and reading through the records of his probate, it made me tear up to see the pitiful little she owned, priced to sell to pay for Jacob’s farm debts[10].  Jacob died in 1871; what kind of life did Margaret led after his death, and after administering his estate — he left no will — and selling what she owned for the benefit of Jacob’s creditors?  Her two eldest sons were in California at the time; neither returned home to Missouri again.  Her siblings were either deceased or still in Indiana.  Her only kindred around her at such a tough time seems to have been her children and grandchildren.  I hope they brought her some comfort.
  6. My 5th great-grandfather, Philip Copple, father of Jacob and grandfather of Ben Franklin Copple.  He was born in North Carolina, probably in Rowan County or Randolph County[11].  He married Anna Patsy [Patsy Anne?  Martha Ann?] Wright in Wayne County, Kentucky[12], and later moved to Washington County, Indiana probably by 1812 with many of his own Copple kin, as well as his wife’s family.  Philip’s in-laws are famous today as southern Indiana 19th century preachers, in particular his brother-in-law John Wright.  Philip was reportedly a preacher too.  I would like to meet him and ask him about his religious beliefs, listen to his preaching (assuming he was a preacher), as well as ask him about his own family (to see if I’ve gotten the relationships correct, as there are multiple Philip Copples in Washington County, Indiana in the early 19th century — and multiple Jacobs, Barbaras, Margarets, etc.)  Are my facts straight?

So, I could go on up a few generations, but I’ll leave off with these six ancestors for now.  Ask me on a different day and you’ll probably get a completely different answer!

What about you?  Which ancestor or ancestors would you most like to meet?

[1] California Department of Health Services, death certificate state file no. 11-034498, Ellien [Eileen or Helen] Colbert (1911); Center for Health Statistics and Informatics, Sacramento.

[2] Church baptismal record for Helen Houlihan, 24 Mar 1877, church not named, Parish: Athea, County: Limerick, Father: Charles Houlihan; online transcriptions (http://limerick.rootsireland.ie : accessed 27 Sep 2012).

[3] See Cathy Dempsey (cathymd) “DNA_Direct Ancestors” tree, Ancestry.com.

[4] “Arizona, County Coroner and Death Records, 1881-1971”, Benjamin Franklin Copple, death date: 7 July 1911;Ancestry.com, digital database (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=60874 : accessed 15 August 2017) > Yavapai > Death > 1865-1928.  Note that date of birth conflicts with censuses during Ben’s lifetime (1840 – 1910) which gave an approximate birthdate of 1832.

[5] “Missouri Marriage Records, 1805-2002,” Franklin Copple and Plebe [Phebe] Harvy, 21 Dec 1851; database with images, Ancestry.com (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1171 : accessed 13 June 2016) > Jasper > Record Images for Jasper > 1841-1874 > img 122.

[6] “Arizona, County Marriage Records, 1865-1972,” Benjamin Franklin Copple and Marena [Marova] Jane Johnston, 28 May 1880; database with images, Ancestry.com (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=60873 : accessed 13 June 2016) > Yavapai > Marriage Records, Index, 1871-1928 > img 1426.

[7] “Summons 16967 in the Superior Court of Arizona, County of Yavapai”, Prescott Evening Courier (Prescott Arizona), 26 June 1947, p 15:4; digital images, Google News (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=MNNNGtAgD4EC&dat=19470626&printsec=frontpage&hl=en : accessed 21 Aug 2014).

[8] “B.F. Copple and son Bert Copple, ” Healdsburg Tribune, Enterprise and Scimitar  (Healdsburg, California), 10 September 1908, page 2, column 2; digital images, California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside, (http://cdnc.ucr.edu : accessed 30 October 2018).

[9] Find A Grave, database (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 20 January 2017), memorial page for Margaret Blalock Copple (1809-1892), no. 91276187, citing Fidelity Cemetery, Fidelity, Jasper County, Missouri, USA; created and maintained by Dona (Wilcox) Cupp (contributor 46971570).  Margaret was buried in Jasper County, Missouri, but was living in Newton County as of the 1880 census enumeration.  See:  1880 U.S. census, Newton County, Missouri, population schedule, Enumeration District 98, Marion Township, (handwritten) page 12D, (stamped) page 398, dwelling 102, family 108, Margaret Coppy [Copple] household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=6742 : accessed 29 October 2016); citing National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) microfilm publication T9, roll 705.

[10] “Missouri, Wills and Probate Records, 1766-1988”, estate of Jacob Copple, file 475, Newton County, Missouri; digital database, Ancestry.com (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=9071 : accessed 20 October 2017) > Newton > Probate Case Files, No 450-485 > imgs 940-981.

[11] Find A Grave, database (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 20 January 2017), memorial page for Margaret Blalock Copple (1809-1892), no. 45709964, citing Old Mill Creek Church of Christ Cemetery, Salem, Washington County, Indiana, USA; created by jpmgs (contributor 46910169); maintained by Bill Myers (contributor 46945321).

[12] “Kentucky, County Marriages, 1783-1965,” Phillip Copple and Anne Wright, 1804; database with images, Ancestry.com (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=61372: accessed 13 June 2016) > Wayne > 1801-1860 > img 27.

Charles Holst: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, #3

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  My great-granddad Charles Holst was one of 3 great-grandparents who were alive when I was born, and one of 2 I can actually remember, although the memory is fuzzy.  Grandpa Charlie (so-called by my aunt and uncles to differentiate him from the other grandparents) was born in Healdsburg, Sonoma County, California, on 18 October 1884, to Peter Holst, who was 37, and Caroline (Thomsen) Holst, who was 41.

Charlie had an older sister, Annie, born in 1875, an older sister Mary born in 1881.  Another son, named Peter, was stillborn a year before Charlie was born.  Reportedly, there was another brother, George, who was born in 1885, but I have found no records backing up his existence.

CharlieWithSpirit

Grandpa Charlie Holst with his horse named Spirit

The Holsts did not live in town, but instead on a ranch on Dry Creek Road, about 4 miles from Healdsburg proper, back in the hills.   Charlie’s father had a vineyard and a winery; the winery remained in production until Prohibition.

GrandpaCharlieandChasMoisan

Charlie Holst (left) with Charles Moisan, his wife’s brother-in-law

Grandpa Charlie’s parents were ethnically Danish, having both been born in the Duchy of Slesvig near Flensburg – an area which is now in Germany, and, in fact, became part of Bismarck’s Prussian Empire before they immigrated to the United States.

There is little I know about my great-grandfather.  I don’t know if he spoke Danish in addition to English.  I don’t know where he went to school, if he went to school at all – presumably there was a local school in the Healdsburg area.  I don’t know how he met the woman he would marry, Hazel Hannah Englehart, but possibly it was through her father, who reportedly built (or painted?) the Holst farm house, as he was a painter and carpenter. 

In any case, I had always been told that Charlie and Hazel married in January 1908, in Marin County, just south of Petaluma.  But when I ordered a copy of their marriage record, I discovered they married on 28 January 1909.  Their firstborn, a son named Charles (Junior) and called “Sonny”, was born just 6 months later on 2 August 1909. 

Their next child was my grandmother, Elizabeth, born in June 1914.  Another son, William, was born in 1921, and then a stillborn baby girl in 1928.

With Prohibition arriving in 1920, Charlie and his father ripped out all the vineyards they were cultivating, and starting growing plum trees.  Charlie’s father, a viticulturist, died before the repeal of Prohibition, as did his mother.  Charlie remained on the land, and made a living off the land until he died in 1968.

His children grew up and moved away, one serving in World War II and another having a family in Sonoma County, then divorcing his wife, and later moving to Oregon with his second wife.

HolstFamily1961

The Holsts in 1961.  L to R: Hazel (Englehart) Holst, Grace (Proden) Holst, Bill Holst (with dog), Charlie Holst, Charlie Holst Jr. (aka “Sonny”)

Their land off Dry Creek Road was where we visited when I was a four year old.  I remember the pink house they lived in, the sunshine, the hills which seemed to hug the house they were so close.  I remember going outside, and seeing my great-grandpa in the vegetable garden they had alongside the house, wearing denim overalls.   Although my mom tells me both my great-grandparents saw me as a baby, before we moved to Florida, that is my only memory of my great-granddad.  He died 2 years later in April 1968, and is buried in Oak Mound Cemetery in Healdsburg.