I've had great intention of posting on this blog regularly now that I have more time -- but somehow, it seems that time keeps getting filled with other activities!  So, here I am, 2+ years later and giving it another shot.
Back in May I went to a genealogy conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Heard some excellent lectures and discovered a few neat things.  Including access to more Michigan newspapers.  And stumbled upon this!

So, the plan is to look for more newspaper articles, as well as my usual research.

Pearl Harbor 75th Anniversary

Today is the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.  I remember the 50th, because Mom and Dad were visiting at my house.  We were watching some commemoration on tv and dad started talking about his experience that day.  This was the first time I can remember of him talking about Pearl Harbor.  I hadn't known, but he was already in the Army.  He had been drafted in October or November, 1941.  By December, he was stationed at Camp Joseph T. Robinson in Arkansas.  I remember him talking that about that camp before this time - probably because we had some photos of him there.

He said he remembered that he was off base, in town, just casually walking down the street.  He came upon an officer who sternly asked him,  "Where's your hat, soldier?  You're out of uniform!  Don't you know there's a war on?"  And that is how he found out.

Later I went to the National Archives and found some unit histories that summarized some of the activities of his unit.  I also got a copy of his discharge which details his date of entry also.  Come to find out, Dad was in the Army from before the war started   He was in just a month shy of 4 years.  his official date of enlistment was 18 Nov 41 and he was discharged in October 1945 - well after both V-E and V-J days.

Fold3 has a lot of digitized WWII records available for free for a while in recognition of the anniversary.  If I can find my notes about his unit I'll look for more records.

In between house remodeling and stuff like that, I've been playing with my family history data again.  Although the plan was to clean up sources, instead I have been working more on the problem reports.  So far, most are pretty easy fixes like wrong dates (typos) making someone 213 yrs at death or married before born.  A few have been "unknown sex" generally because I forget to select  when entering the person, but a couple are not immediately clear from the name.  On those, I've gone back to the record of birth or baptism to see if sex is given.  Usually it will say a son of or daughter of.  If I do not have birth or baptism, it's back to the census or marriage or other record which named this person as a child of parent.  I think I have all those problems settled.

One of the more major errors caught was where I had a person who died as an infant married and having children.  This is pretty easy to do with the Dutch families in particular because of the tradition to name children for the grandparents and other family members.  If that child then dies, then name is re-used for the next child of that sex to be born.  I have found families where the same first name is given to at least 3 children.

In this case, I thought it was going to be a chore to delete all those facts from the infant and add them all to the living person.  But then I wised up and realized all I had to do was change the birth and death dates of each to the other!  Presto correct!!  The little warning sign disappeared!

Well, not a great reboot!  Over two weeks since my last post.  Well, really, not so bad.
I have at least accomplished some things genealogical in these past 2 weeks.  For one, much has changed in the online world as far as websites and records available for research.  I am tempted to jump in and explore all these new sources!! However, there has also been a new edition of my genealogy software (RootsMagic, now version 7).
   So, I upgraded to that and have been spending some time learning what new features are available.  I also have been finding problems in my data.  RM has a little warning symbol show up as a "Problem Alert"  by items it thinks might be wrong, such as died before being born(!) or child born before marriage (not always a "problem"!!)  I am looking at these and trying to clean up some of those issues.  I've also found some errors that have crept in, either due to moving from one program to another or simply data entry errors. The error I am particularly interested in correcting has to do with misplaced sources.  I find some facts have a completely wrong source.  I think these errors came up when I transferred from one program to another.  But now -- find and fix!!
  None of this is very exciting, not likely to discover new lines or relatives.  but it is a very necessary part of the record-keeping.  And a side benefit is it refreshes my memory of who was who, what I know and what I don't know, so maybe I can be a bit more focused in my research after this!

No clue who these people are or even if they are family.  Looks like a pleasant Sunday in the park.

Wow.  This is so strange!  It has been so long since I posted anything here...I couldn't even find it.  Could not remember which of many email addresses I used.
But now, I've found it.  I am here.  The blog is here.  Still exploring changes made to the platform.

Since I was last here, there have been many changes to me, my life and family.  But I have been involved with genealogy all that time.  I added a son-in-law to the tree (and did some research on his family) and now a granddaughter and grandson.  Will be adding another son-in-law next spring (and have done some research on his family also).  I joined Find-A-Grave and have been creating memorials and adding photos.  I did more research and added 4 more DAR Patriot ancestors for my daughter.  And I quit work!

This last has been the Fantastic!  I moved, so now am close to grandkids and enjoy being able to help out.  I've been dealing with remodeling issues a lot for the past 3+ months.  But now, I'm hoping to get myself into a research and report routine.
I finally upgraded RootsMagic and will be taking some time learning about changes.  And then will decided what line or topic I will write on next.

Stay tuned.

Hop relatives come to America

To find more information on the Hops in Michigan I searched Ancestry.com for individual given names I knew were related.  In a search for Jacob Hop, it came up with 9 Jacobs on passenger lists.  One of these was an Arrival in 1867 of Jacob born about 1866.  This fit well with one a Jacob I was interested in - son of Brand Hop and Lubbertjen Luchtenberg.  His mother was related to me on two lines - her mother was the sister of Aalt Lubbertsen Hop, her father was the brother of Pietertje Willems.  Aalt and Pietertje were the parents of Lubbertje Hop, wife of Willem Morren.  So, two of my great-great-great-great-grandfathers were Jacob's great-grandfathers.  Got that??  I think Brand Hop (father of Jacob) is also related to me, but not sure yet.

So. I pulled up the image of that passenger list   It was definitely the Jacob of interest.  Listed directly above him is Jan Witteveen, age 14.  This is Jacob's half-brother from his mother's first marriage, to Jan Witteveen. (Jan the father died in October 1852, and Jan the son was born in February of 1853.) Next above on the passenger list are Wilhelm ", Jeannette  " and above that Hendrik  ".  I believe them to be Willem, Jannitje and Hendrik Luchtenberg - the brother, sister and father of Lubbertje.  Then is Lubbertje Luchtenberg  and listed above her name, Brand Hop.

So, clearly, this is the Luchtenberg family related to me..  It certainly helps that on this list the women are listed under their own surnames in the Dutch manner, not under the husband's name.

But - the real find of this story is this:
Since I was already browsing the list to find who was traveling with Jacob, I continued to scroll up the list.  Next was a Timmer family.  I know there are Timmers from the same village and who married Hops (although so far not proven to be related).
Next up the list -- my Morren family!! But that is a whole other story...