Geiszler Genealogy

With a name like Charles Allen Smith, is there any wonder how easy it might be to mix him up? Never! Okay, that's wrong. Charles is the grandson of my 'newest' great+ grandfather David Smith . In family research, I had a Charles Allen Smith married to a Rhoda J Prickett. Charles was from Ohio but died in Michigan. The dates were pretty fuzzy, things like abt 1859. Using the GenSmarts program with RootsMagic , I came across a suggestion to look into the Michigan State Census of 1900. I don't know why hints like these come up and then I'm taken to Ancestry.com US Federal Census 1900, but I digress. In any case, a large list resulted from the name Charles Smith. That's to be expected. Since I don't like the filtering format on Ancestry.com, I decided to go over to FamilySearch.org . I really like their filtering system. I can fine tune a search quickly, casting narrow and broad scopes easily. In any case, I came across an entry for Charles A Smith and ...

My dear mothers gave me a lot of records when I took over as the research 'guru' of the family. I'll admit that I probably should have asked a lot more questions regarding her research. Nevertheless, I didn't and know I'm stumped. I have this little nugget stapled to a piece of paper. I have no idea what it says. I could be written in German, yet many words look English. There appears to be a date as well of perhaps 22 July 1833. Anyway, I'm posting this in hopes that someone could help me figure out what it says and perhaps what it might mean. Amanuensis Monday is a daily blogging prompt from GeneaBloggers , the genealogy community's resource for blogging. It is used by many genealogy bloggers to help them tell stories of their ancestors.

German names are quiet challenging to find in Census records. The last name Zumstine has been quite challenging. For one, no family member can agree on how the end of the name should be spelled... Zumstine, Zumstien, Zumstein? Add to that the fact that many government document records are written in terrible hand writing and the search for this family name gets even more complicated. When I was searching in Canadian Census records for the last name, I found the last name spelled Zumptine. Okay, I can see where the last name might have a p in the name if you hear it spoken. I couldn't find the family of Robert Walter Zumstein in the 1881 Census. He would have been in the family of his father Henry as he didn't marry Adeline Snyder until 1894. I found Heny Zumpzine, age 38, in the 1871 Canadian Census in the Gainsborough township of Lincoln, Ontario, Canada. Since the Library and Archives Canada database search, doesn't have a soundex search feature, I was stump...

I haven't found this as a blog prompt but I'm going to start it anyway. What are you in need of help on? What questions puzzle you as a genealogical researcher? On Wanting Wednesday, I'm posting items that I could use a little guidance on. I hope others will do the same. My want is to understand if I'm going on a wild goose chase or not. Here's the story. I have documented that Samuel Curtis Brown (1821 MD - 1900 OH) is my great-grandfather. His wife is Martha Gordon (1827 OH - 1901 OH). I've been having trouble establishing Samuel's father, or any siblings for that matter. In the LDS Ancestral File, a father's name of James Brown of Maryland is given as Samuel's father. There is no supporting documentation. I've searched Ancestry.com and Rootsweb.com and found a family tree with my Samuel on it. It also lists James as the father as well as some potential siblings. One of the potential sibling is Ferdinand Brown (1813 MD). A Ferdinand appeared in...

For me, Mother's Day was on May 15th this year since my husband was out of town. So, to celebrate my Mother's Day, I want to praise a very special person. Her name is Lura Maud Smith (1884-1934). Lura was married to Harry Howard Long (1883-1937). The couple married in Columbus, Ohio on Jun 19, 1907. They were unable to have children and finally adopted their first child in 1916. In May 1920, a baby girl was born in Columbus, Ohio to an unwed mother. The mother died of preeclampsia. This baby girl would become my grandmother. Upon her mother's death, Baby Anderson became a ward of the State of Ohio Welfare Department. She had a caseworker, Ethel Huffman Ackerman, who wanted to place Baby Anderson in the home of Harry Long. The caseworker was a friend and classmate (at Ohio State) of Harry's sister Elizabeth Long. As Elizabeth retells the story, Ethel received Baby Anderson's birth mother's history and felt that Harry and Lura were just the parents for this ne...

Do you consider education a talent? Well, in a family where I heard "Get your Ph.D. before your Mrs.", education is considered a talent. Thanks to Ancestry.com I have found out that my great-grandfather Zumstein was not a graduate of Iowa State University in Ames. Robert Victor Zumstein was a native of St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada. He graduated from a university in Toronto in 1917. He moved to Iowa and obtained his Masters in Math and and Physics in 1918. And he obtained his PhD (probably in Physics) in 1924 from S.U.I in 1924 before moving to the University of Michigan to obtain more education and become a professor until 1926. He later became a professor at Ohio State University from 1928-1968. It seems he loves the Big Ten schools! Victor's sweet daughter Dorothy wrote his biography in the 1970s. To his Canadian born daughter who married a Canadian and raised her family in Canada, I'm not sure she knew there were two colleges with similar sounding names in Iowa...

My brother has had a gift for art that I've just never been able to acquire. Even though I focus primarily on ancestors, I just visited his family and I thought I'd pay tribute to him. Here's a sample of his artwork. It's the team logo from his High School in Texas. I'm fairly certain the letters were done in stencil (David had terrible handwriting) but the bear was done in free hand. Thanks to David's art ability, I got an A on an assignment for one of my English classes in High School. We were supposed to submit a drawing about some book. David's picture was AWESOME. I so wish I still had a copy of that picture. (Still don't know why I had an assignment for drawing a picture in English, but I digress). Anyway, artistic do appear in my family. Unfortunately, I don't have samples of their work. My mother won awards at the Ohio State Fair for latch hook rugs. They were 1970 red and orange, so I didn't appreciate them, but that's still pre...

I have another photo from the family album that I've been blessed to be the guardian of. Many of the photos have been identified, but several have not. This picture is labeled Bertha Schenk. Bertha was said to be the maid of honor or some such important attendant, at the wedding of Henry Joseph Geiszler to Magdalena Hoppe on 3 Jul 1882 in Columbus, Franklin, Ohio. Other than this information, that's all I have of her. Except that she has a son, of which I have a baby picture for. So... perhaps someone is looking for Bertha Schenk. Hopefully, they can help me solve this mystery.