An Interest In Genealogy

     As a young child I have always been interested in history.  I am not sure how that interest arose in me.  My mom never really was interested in the past nor were my sibilings.  Sometimes when I was little I would daydream about who, in the past, walked the same earthly grounds as I was walking.  Who would walk the same grounds after me?  We are only here on the Earth a short time.  Is it important to find out where we came from to let future generations know how they came to be?  I believe so.  We are only a small link in the chain of time from the past generations linking together the future generations. 

     My mother's mother (Nonnie is what we called her) used to have a Family Bible.  I am not sure if she bought it on her own to put newspaper clippings in or if her mother bought it for the same reason.  However she came to have the Family Bible wasn't important.  I just knew it wasn't that old.  But what it contained was the real treasure.  I remember going over to her apartment and thumbing through the newspaper clippings and reading old obituaries of distant relatives.  There was even a picture of a young girl who was probably a year or two older than me.  I asked Nonnie about this girl.  She would tell me she was related and that she died of leukemia.  Nonnie added on that due to chemotherapy she lost her hair.  She finished treatment and her hair finally started growing back and that picture was when her hair was somewhat long enough to look feminine even though it was still on the short side.  I would look at that picture and feel sad for her that she had to battle cancer at a young age and die.  I was still at the age where I pictured my Nonnie and Grandpa being one - having one family and not coming from their own families.  Being of a young age I was ignorant of the type of questions I needed to ask.  Sadly, Nonnie and Grandpa passed away before I became knowledgeable in the type of questions I needed to ask. 

     In that Family Bible a newspaper clipping caught my attention.  It was about a Levi or Lester Holbrook.  It was a good half page article about him.  I am trying to remember it now but it was an article celebrating a milemarker birthday and the things he has lived through.  That article has been misplaced through time but that was the key ingredient which started my journey on the family tree.  I remember it talked about either him or his dad fighting in the Civil War.  I remember he mentioned about the first house he had with his wife and how cold the winters were.  Snow would come in through the roof and in the morning him and his wife had to shake off the snow from their blankets.  They kept chickens in the crawl space between the ground and the floor.  I couldn't imagine having to live like that.  But people did back then.  But the name Holbrook stuck in my mind.  Who were the Holbrooks and how where they related? 

     I must of been 11 or 12 when I started my search.  Back then I didn't have the aid of computers like we do today.  The only way I could search was to ask family or go to the library.  The only family that was around was my great Aunt Elaine (Nonnie's sister who lived nearby where Nonnie and Grandpa used to live).  But I still didn't properly know what question's to ask.  I did make a list of questions about what school she went to, did she use horse and buggy (she laughed at that question) and if anything interesting happen in her life.  I should of asked her more about people, places and dates but I was still learning.  My great Aunt Elaine did tell me she was a journalist for the school newspaper and she got to interview Amelia Earhart when she came to Michigan.  How interesting that would of been!

     I dabbled on and off with the family tree during my adolescence.  I would go to the Hoyt Library, which is known for it's genealogy collection, and find information and take notes.  Sometimes years would pass before I would begin my search again on the family tree.  Each time I started to research my line I would pick up new information and clues as to who the Holbrook's were.  I finally discovered Holbrook was my grandfather's mother's maiden name.  I was so excited when I made that connection.  You would of thought I won the lottery by the way I was dancing around with merriment. 

My son Levi is named after the man sitting in this picture - Levi Holbrook (1859-1955)
His wife is Cynthia Jane (Burpo). 
My great grandmother, Opal Holbrook, is standing in front of her mom, Cynthia, just to the left of her dad.

     I seriously took another dive into family trees after I was married with children.  This time computers and the internet was well in use.  I bought a membership to Ancestry.com (you do not need a membership to get started if interested in doing a family tree of your own) and transerfer my written notes to the computer.  I would look at census records and find sibilings, where they lived, where they were from, etc.  I purchased birth and death certificates to aid in my search.  I even requested transcripts from Nonnie's old school and I was able to get a copy of it.  I was having a hayday finding out more and more information.

     Along my search I came in contact with my great Aunt Elaine's daughter who was also working on the family tree.  She shared so much information with me and I shared pictures I had of her and stories I knew.  She had notes back to a person from 1810 in Canada.  She also discovered that through marriage we were related to the Zehnder family.  Zehnder's is a very popular restaurant in Frankenmuth, Michigan famous for their chicken dinners. 

     On my mother's father's side I was able to trace it currently back to 1763.  I have been searching Revolutionary War records and I may have found that someone in the family fought for the Loyalist (The British) but I am still trying to confirm it.  That family really moved about from North Carolina to Kentucky to Illinois and finally to Michigan. 

     My dad's side came across Ellis Island in 1906 from Germany.  With the use of the computer I was able to discover what ship she was on and to see a picture of the ship.  We even had someone stay at the Ellis Island Hospital because she came down with the chicken pox and wasn't allowed entry into the US until she was cured. 

The Ship Patricia in 1909
 This is the ship my great grandmother rode
 on when she came to the United States.

     My husband and I started to work on his side of the family tree.  On our own we discoved that his roots started  in 1869 when an ancestor came from Norway.  We, too, came across a cousin who was also working hard with that line of the family tree and we exchanged notes from her.  She has gone far back in the line to 1570 in Norway and found we were related to the last nobleman of Semelenge in Norway.  In other words we were relaed to one of the old Viking Kings of Norway.


After Lars died in 1867 his wife, Anne, immigrated from Norway to North Dakota in 1869.



My son Halvor was named after Halvor Stensland,
son of Lars and Anne Stensland.
He was about 16 years old when he came to the US.
Halvor (1853-1922) is in the front row second from the right.



     You never know who you may run into while working on a family tree or what stories you may discover.  These stories, dates, and people are now going to be passed down to my children and to their children in case they every wonder how they came to be.  

     A family tree is never really finished.  People are born, people get married and people died.  It is forever changing.  New names and dates of events are constantly being added.   If you know the history around the time the ancestors were living you can get a bigger picture of their lives.