September 2004 Archives

And just like that, my week of research in Salt Lake City is nearly through. I'll be over at The Library again tomorrow, then it's back home to Seattle. I had a huge list of things to work on while here and I've barely scratched the surface. It's just so time consuming. Until this morning, I had spent all my time with just two microfilms from a single Swedish parish.

The picture above is the title page from Volume 1 of the Silte churchbooks. Silte, a small town on the island of Gotland in Sweden, was the birthplace of my great grandparents: Hans Hansson and Johanna Katrina Kristina Cederlund. Over the past couple days, I've found their birth and marriage records as well as those for their siblings, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. Hans' side of the family is full of farmers (he was a blacksmith). Hanna, on the other hand, comes from a long line of schoolmasters and parish clerks.

Oh, and there was one more surprise. I've managed to confirm something I'd stumbled on a couple months ago. My great-aunt Miemie, whose legal name here in Amerika was Vera Hanson, was born Agnes Henny Sevira Hansson. Agnes? Who knew?

This afternoon, I finally managed to move on to some other topics. Most notably, I found the Danish birth records for my great great grandfather, Heinrich Frederik Ludwig Mohr. That means I also discovered his parents: Jochim Hinrich Mohr and Emma Oline Marie Cathrine Petersen. Jochim was a switchman on the Sjaelland Railroad. Cool. I wonder what I'll discover tomorrow.

I turned on the M's v. Angels game in the top of the 8th inning, just as Ichiro! got his fifth hit of the night. He had been in a bit of a "slump" and had fallen off the pace to beat the season record of 257 hits, held by George Sisler. Now, he's back on track with 243 hits; he needs to get 15 hits in 11 games to break the record. I don't have any special baseball knowledge that leads me to think he will make it or he won't; a couple of days ago, I thought not, but after a 5 for 5 effort, I again think it's possible. It makes me glad to watch him try, though.

Secondary to all of this, can the M's hold on to their 6-3 lead for another inning? Which is more likely: the M's winning this game or Ichiro! breaking Sisler's record? Stay tuned for more September baseball, somehow still exciting even though my team is in the basement.

We missed a couple of games due to illness but finally made it to the A's v. M's game on Sunday afternoon (9/19). A cloudy day became sunny, the grass glowed green, we sat in the front row of the left field bleachers above the visitors bullpen. I did have a few fleeting thoughts about the "great game of baseball," how marvelous it all is even when watching a losing team. But then, the actual watching of the losing team got in the way. Also, my fear of Henry hurling his baseball hat or some other object (hot dog, water bottle...) into the bullpen below us interrupted the reverie. We tried to go to the play area, but the wait was over an hour and we couldn't make it that long. We wandered around a bit, which is part of the fun of being at Safeco. He got a Manny Ramirez baseball card from one of the ushers we passed. He has quite a collection of cards now. He likes to look at them and then throw them up in the air to scatter them over as wide an area as possible. We left the game early and Henry zonked out in the car on the way home. Even though it's been a long year as far as watching the Mariners goes, it's still hard to believe we only have two more games left this season. I'll enjoy a break from baseball, but by March I'll be ready for more.

And next year, we're gonna keep score and bring our own peanuts.

Has it really been more than three months since we posted something here? I guess so. Well, we'll change that...

Next week, I'm heading to Salt Lake City for a week of genealogical research at the LDS Family History Library. A decade or so ago, I put a lot of work into researching my ancestry, but since then I've only managed a few little spurts of work every now and then. A couple months ago, I started getting more serious again and it's been quite an experience.

A decade ago, the Internet was a much much smaller place. There were a few good genealogy mailing lists, some resources on AOL and CompuServe (unavailable to non-subscribers), and a handful of websites. I can't remember a single primary source that was available online back then. Genealogical research was all about long hours with a microfilm reader at the National Archives, Family History Library, or any number of other repositories. That's still a part of the story, of course, and that's why I'll be in Salt Lake City next week, but vast amounts of data are now available on the Internet.

Today, companies like Ancestry.com have all of the public US census images digitized and available online (along with much more); The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation has a searchable database of US immigrants who passed through Ellis Island, complete with digitized ship's manifests; and sites like The Danish Emigration Archive and TRESOAR at the Frisian Historical and Literary Center make old-world records just as easily accessible as those here in the US.

So what has all of this meant to me? Without leaving home, I've discovered tons of information about my ancestry (and a little about Kathy's). Some of it is unverified (thus the SLC trip), but nonetheless it's pretty impressive. This picture shows an overview of Henry's ancestry as I knew it a couple months ago and as I know it today. Henry is the box of the far left, with earlier generations trailing off to the right.

Cool. Assuming for the moment it's all correct, that brings one branch of my family tree back to 1323 and quite a few back into the 15th Century. One of my 13th great uncles was Pier Gerlofs Donia, better known as Grutte Pier or Pierius Magnus, a Pirate (!) and Friesian folk hero. In another branch, my 10th Great Grandfather was Konrad Klinge, who was pastor at the reformed church in Thuine (now in Westphalia, Germany) before being forced out during the counter-reformation in 1606. Hmm, I have the sudden urge to learn about the 30 Years War.

So, anyway, I'll be in Utah next week trying to break through a few dead ends and verify what I already have. It will be the first time I've been out-of-town without Henry and Kathy since Henry was born, which will be strange. They've been away without me, but not visa versa.

When does Spring Training start? Thank goodness for Ichiro! and Bobby Madritsch. At least they've been fun to watch. Yeah, we were at a game last Saturday. M's lost to the Red Sox by some large number of runs. Ichiro! didn't have any hits. The Red Sox fans were noticeably louder than the M's fans; I heard them on one of the broadcasts of another game in this series, too. If the M's have to lose to anyone now (and they do have to lose and lose and lose...), I guess a loss to the BoSox is tolerable, since I'd love to see Boston in the World Series.

Fan experience stuff... we skipped Dippin' Dots in favor of a Banana Berry Shiskaberry, but after seeing the USS Mariner's comments on food safety at Safeco, I may avoid eating things that require so much handling and preparation... The roof was on, the green hydro won (which got more cheering than anything the Mariners did), and Captain Plastic passed by our section! The grounds crew danced to a show tune, and the curmudgeonly young guys who sometimes sit in front of us booed them with vigor. Henry imitated this, of course. Henry picked up a bunch of baseball cards from various ushers.

Brad and I have been watching tonight's game (9/14, Angels @ M's). We Tivo'd it, so there's been a lot of fast forwarding. Right now, we're both about to lose it; we've been listening to Fairly inane commentary (though most of the inanity was Hendu and Rizzs: did you know that you have to get that 27th out to win a ballgame?). Madritsch almost has the game in the bag, but gives up a run in the ninth, and so is yanked. The Angels score again, so the Mariners are ahead 3-2. I guess this season has brought out the pessimist in each of us; it looks like another one of those games where a good pitching performance is wasted, where the bullpen is going to lose it, where Melvin is going to lose it, blah blah blah! Fittingly, Ichiro! catches a fly ball for the last out and the M's hang on to win it. Thank god.