Happy New Year

Sibling Saturday - Pavel Verno - Part II - Paul Worno

June 15 I wrote about one of the Vernosiblings, Pavel Verno, brother to my great-grandmother Julia Verno. I had no information about him whatsoever, no birthdate, birthplace, death date, no, nothing what so ever.

Today I did some random searches on familysearch.org and guess who showed up? There he was, my Pavel Verno. Well, it said Paul Worno, born March 24, 1885 in Plescau, Russia. Son of August Wilhelm Worno and Anna.

I found him in a record collection called "Russia, Births and Baptisms, 1755 - 1917".

Awesome! And I had no idea his father August was called Wilhelm as well. And he was born in Plescau / Pskov / Pikhva just like some of his other siblings.

This is the old post about Pavel Verno: http://cousinlinda.blogspot.se/2013/06/sibling-saturday-part-3-pavel-verno.html

And the posts about the other Verno-siblings.
Part 1 - Sonja Verno (Oeberg)
Part 2 - Maria Verno (Belinski)
Part 3 - Valentina Verno (Kiljar)

Happy Holidays

I wish everyone Happy Holidays!

Me and the dog!

DNA - Friday - will it help solve the genealogy puzzle?

DeoxyriboNucleic Acid, yes, DNA. I got my testresuts from FamilyTreeDNA. And this is all so exciting.

When I was I kid, I loved looking up in the sky at night, at all the starts, going dizzy when trying to understand the universe go on and on and on and on... forever and ever and ever.

Now I sent this little sample, and with that, it is possible to look thousands and thousands of years back, knowing where MY genes first started. They have really been passed on generation after generation after generation for such a long time. And with science it is possible to track them back. I find it so amazing.

I love spending time searching for documents and records, looking for clues, trying to understand and learning the life of my ancestors. But with DNA it is like a whole new dimension opened up. With that, analysed in a science lab,  I know there are people that matches me, that are related to me even if I haven't found that specific document to prove it. Perhaps there isn't any document at all, it might be over 20 generations back in time. But still, that exact person and I are related. And we didn't know.

I had two things analysed. First one is called Family Finder. With that, I can find decendants of my greatgreatgrand parents. I got a lot of matches in the FamilyTreeDNA database. Mainly distant, no ones really close. Still, somehow, I am connected to them in some way.

The other test I had was a full mtDNA sequence. This uses genetic material that is passed down from a mother to her children, both male and female but it is only females who can pass it on. With that, I was also provided with my haplogroup and it dates at least 20 000 years ago.

I am happy I found a totally new angle to look at my genealogy research. I want to learn everything about it - yesterday already. I am totally hooked.

With that, here is a picture of my grandmother and her mother. Hoping with DNA I will find out more about her grandmother and great-grandmother and add some pieces to my genealogy puzzle.

My great grandmother, Julie Verno, born 1887 (married to Eduard Seck), holding her daughter
my grandmother Ludmila, born 1922. Standing next to them is my grandmothers brother, George, born 1916.

Tombstone Tuesday - Servant Nils Lundin at Rosendal

Last night was the second episode of the Swedish version of Who Do You Think You Are. The celeb of the day was Mia Skäringer. Since she is from the Värmland area I was quite surprised when she suddenly showed up in Helsingborg. Even more surprised, and truly happy, when she went to the Rosendal castle nearby. It turned out she had a relative who worked as a servant at the castle, Nils Lundin,  and his daughter Olivia was born there in 1859.

A couple of months ago I registerd tombstones at the cemetery of Kropp that was inventoried in the 1990s. ( Database found here: http://www.genealogi.se/gravproj/Gravsoklist.php ). I recognized the name so I did a search and sure I found it.

Now, it would have been awesome if Mia had visited the cemetery as well, looking at the tombstone, when she was in the area. The cemetery is only a few kilometers from the castle. Maybe she was, it wasn't shown on TV in that case.

The stone is not in its original place, it has been moved but is kept and it is integrated in the stonewall surrounding the cemetery.

So, I went there and took a new picture of the stone today.

Tombstone in the wall - Servant Nils Lundin and his wife Hanna Lundin. Nils worked
at the Rosendal castle

It is quite hard to read but is say Nils Lundin. If you move the stones on the ground away you will see his wife's name Hanna as well.

Hard to read but is says Nils Lundin

View of Kropp cemetery with the wall in the background

Motivation Monday - October Goals

The goals I set for September:

1. Order muster rolls for Andrew Richardson from the Wisconsin Veteran Museum. (15 minutes) 
2. Do the DNA test. (15 minutes) 
3. Write at least seven blogposts

So, I finished # 2. I didn't write as many blogposts as I had hoped for. But I did do quite some research but this time it wasn't enough interesting to write a blog post about. On the other hand, I did post a lot of blogposts on my Swedish blog (kusinlinda.blogspot.com).

Anyhow, a couple of other interesting things came my way this month. I was browsing the homepage of my local genealogy society. They were looking for an editor for the member paper also including webmaster of thier homepage. I sent an email, within an hour I had a call. A few days later we had a meeting and now to start with this fall I will be webmaster of the homepage. After Christmas and New Year I will step in an be the editor of the paper as well. I am really looking forward to this.

And the second unexpected thing that happend to me this month. Next year, there will be a new magazine here Sweden about genealogy. I wrote a couple of things that will appear (hopefully) in the first number. I am really excited.

Those two things wasn't on my September list of goals but it is funny how things turn out sometimes.

So, hello October!

1. Order muster rolls for Andrew Richardson from the Wisconsin Veteran Museum. (15 minutes)
2. Write at least seven blogposts.

Tombstone Tuesday - Iru Kodu Rahula

When we were in Estonia on vacation earlier in August this year we visited a couple of cemeteries. One was Pärnamäe. Walking around looking for the tombtone of my relatives I took a picture of this view. If anyone know anything about this specific area, please let me know.

Iru Kodu Rahula - Pärnamäe cemetery, Tallinn, Estonia

Sibling Saturday Part 5 - Helena Verno

This is part five about the Verno-siblings, siblings of my great-grandmother Julia Verno. This is about Helena Verno. She was born July 30, 1889 in Pskov, Russia. As with the others of the Vernosiblings I don't have much information.

She married Jan Christian Ugur. He was born October 30, 1883 in Estonia and later on moved to Pskov where they he and Helena got married on January 15 in 1918.

They had three children:

Heinrich - born Pskov (Russia) April 15, 1919
Eduard - born in Pechory (at the time Estonia, today Russia) August 25, 1920
Magdalena - born in Pechory (at the time Estonia, today Russia) November 12, 1923

Helena Verno with husband Jan Christian Ugur and thier
three children Heinrich, Eduard and Magdalena

So, when I started my family history research to me the children was known as Genja, Eddie and Magda. A couple of years ago I found relatives of Eduard at geni.com. In thier documentation Genja was known as Heinrich. I got it explained to me that since they lived in an area where Russian was the main language he was addressed Gennadi, or short, Genja, even if his given name was Heinrich.

When we went to Tallinn in Estonia in August this summer one of the genealogyrelated things I wanted to do was to visit the Pärnamäe cemetery. Heinrich and his wife Roosa was supposed to be buried there. Estonia has a really nice database for locating tombstones, http://www.kalmistud.ee/Cemetery-Portal-of-Estonia. Not only if you are lucky to find what you are looking for, there are zoomable maps where the tombstones are marked out. I had both printed out maps and screendumps of the maps in Evernote on my iPad. Pärnamäe was the second cemetery we visited and I am glad we had the maps because even with maps this tombstone was really hard to find. Walking around that cemetery there were many stones with photographs of the person/s and I was thinking that perhaps there would be a photo on Heinrich's stone as well. Now, I am happy we found the stone at all. We found the area where it should be, but no stone. Spent at least 30 minutes looking around like 50 stones. On the map you could see exact row and what number it should be but it was not there. Well, not until C decided to look inside an overgrown bush. There it was, totally invisible from the path. There were no photos on it but I was so happy we had found it.

The tombstone was hardly visible.

Heinrich Ugur 1919 - 1983 and his wife Roosa 1920 - 1994

Earlier posts of the Verno siblings:

Part 1 - Sonja Verno (Oeberg)
Part 2 - Maria Verno (Belinski)
Part 3 - Valentina Verno (Kiljar)

Part 4 - Pavel Verno

Motivation Monday - September goals

Remember the goals for August?

1. Order muster rolls for Andrew Richardson from the Wisconsin Veteran Museum. (15 minutes) 
2. Do the DNA test. (15 minutes) 
3. Finish the research from my friend 
4. Register headstones at Fleninge Cemetery at http://www.genealogi.se/gravproj/Gravsoklist.php

1: No

2: No

3: Part 1 and 2 done

4: Yes

And then it was the familyreunion the last weekend of August, had a great time meeting some relatives I had never met before.

Another thing I did this month, I got really inspired by Genea-Opportunities 2013 by Thomas MacEntee. Those posts are really worth reading.  I also got inspired by on how to use Excel for track tasks, projects and progress, a video made by Thomas MacEntee as well. I watched the video, loved the idea and built my own spreadsheet for my projects and tasks. I like using Excel and I wish I could use it more. Anyhow, I have so many things I want to do, just writing them down in my spreadsheet made them seem less overwhelming. Now I check my projectspreadsheet while having breakfast so I know what to do during the upcoming day. It might be a special email I need to write or ideas for upcoming blogposts.

Goals for September:

1. Order muster rolls for Andrew Richardson from the Wisconsin Veteran Museum. (15 minutes) 
2. Do the DNA test. (15 minutes) 
3. Write at least seven blogposts

Unknown place and unknown people

Wedding Wednesday - Unknown couple

This couple is in a photo album that has belonged to either my great grand parents Nils Anton Berlin and Hanna Persson in Farstorp or perhaps thier son-in-law. The photo is taken at Atelier Söderholm in Kristianstad so the couple probably lived somewhere in the Skåne area.

Unknown couple

Tombstone Tuesday - Two blind siblings

Last weekend I was at a two day long familyreunion in Tving in Blekinge. Day two we all went to the cemetery in Tving to look at some tombstones related to the family. We went there a bit early so I had time to add the cemetery to Billiongraves.com and upload a couple of photos. It was a very sunny day, not suitable for tombstone photography.

Anyway, I found a really special tombstone, it says: Two blind siblings, Allgot 11 year, Matilda 20 year, 1899.

2 blind siblings, Allgot 11 year, Matilda 20 years, 1899.

I decided to try to see what I could find out. Allgot or Olof Allgot that was his full name was born September 25 1887, in Tving. He died January 26 in 1899. Matilda was born February 24, 1879, in Tving. She died June 17 in 1899. They were both noted as blind in the churchbooks.

Allgot and Matilda with thier parents and siblings.
Tving  (1895-1911) page 358 

Follow Friday - Arkiv Digital - free this weekend

This weekend is a big weekend for genealogy in Sweden. It is time for the genealogy event of the year. This year it is held in Köping. Everyone will be there. Well, I am not going this year but I am sure it will be a great time.

So, if you are not going, you could try out Arkiv Digital that will be free of charge this weekend (August 24-25).  If you have Swedish ancestors and you know where they lived you could try and see if you can find them in perhaps a brithbook or a deathbook. I am a subscriber to Arkiv Digital, but I also uses the Swedish National Archives site (Svar) and at times I use Genline (records also available on ancestry.com) as well. The nice thing with Arkiv Digital is that the pictures of the book/records are in color.

They also have an iPad app which I wrote about in an other post).

So, have a look at arkivdigital.net this weekend. You would need to register and then you will have to download the software (available for Windows, Mac and Linux).

This is a screen dump from birthbook of Nättraby, Blekinge. Henrik was married to my
great grandaunt Hilma Charlotta Hansdotter. They were both deaf.

Travel Tuesday - I went to Estonia

This year much of my research focus has been on my Estonian side of the family. My grandmother was born in Tallinn. Her father, Eduard Seck, was born in Estonia and her mother, Julia Verno,  in what is today Russia. They all came to Sweden in mid 1940s. My grandmothers first husband was killed during WWII and after she came to Sweden she met my grandfather.

Coming to Sweden I think they lost contact with more distant relatives back in Estonia which became a part of Soviet Union. I need to mention I never met my grandmother (or grandfather). They had both passed away when I was born. My connection to the past has been my mom of course but Eduard died the same year as she was born and Julia when she was only five. My aunt who is five years older and also a cousin have provided me with most of the names and dates. Some I have been able to find out more about some I still don't have a clue.

When I got bitten with the genealogybug in 2007 I also had some focus on my Estonian side of the family. I discovered that some documents was only available in Russian. So, I took a Russian language class. All the time along I have also been meaning to take a class in Estonian language, every spring and fall I have signed up and everytime when the class was supposed to start I got an email that it has been canceled due to too few participants. Well, except this spring, I got an email they didnt have a teacher.

Anyway. I decided I wanted to visit Tallinn. I was in Tallinn in 1989, when it was a part of the Soviet Union. It was a project with young people from all over Scandinavia called Next Stop Sovjet. We had people coming from Soviet in the summer of 89 and then in September we travelled to Soviet. Living with local people in thier homes. First I was in Pärnu, then we went to Tallinn, back to Pärnu and then Moscow. We went by Sankt Petersburg also, well, back then it was called Leningrad.

I felt it was time for a reunion with me and Tallin. One of the first thing that crossed my mind was that is would not really be a genealoytrip. I was not going to visit any archives or do any research.  I was only going to visit two cemeteries looking for three tombstones. But I wanted to find interesting places to see and visit as well.

We were staying five nights with no time for sighseeing the same day as we were leaving. I used Evernote for my planning, a shared notebook. I put copies of the flight tickes, hotel reservastion, maps, links and specially links for genealogy in there. I also made a rough schedule for each day. Some things needed to visited a special day since it wasn't open every day, some sightseeing tours was only a certain day a week, some tours only certain times in a day if you wanted it to be in English and so on. So, I made that puzzle and it looked quite nice. Ofcourse, looking around I found some interesting places to visit. A couple of relatives were into theatre and when there, why not just walk passed that theatre and take a picture. Why not take a picture of the church where my grandmother was christened. Why not in case of time drop by the Music and theatre museum. And ofcourse, after founding on-line, one relative which I had no photo of would have a picture in the Jewish museum. He would also have a small biography in the Encyclopedia of Estonia, the 2008 edition. I was sure I could find that a the national library. I carefully typed down open hours and when I was done I had a couple of more genealogy related must-dos:

• Taking picture of: Nikolai church, Russian Theatre, Estonian Drama Theatre, Russian school.
• Museum: Jewish museum to look at a photo of my relative.
• Cemetery: Visit two cemeteries, looking for tombstones, in case of time, visiting a third one
• Library: Look into the Encyclopedia of Estonia for my relative

Besides from using Evernote to plan everything I also used Google Earth. Since I wasn't at all familiar with Tallin I felt I needed to pin out all the places on a map. That made it easier to see what places that were close to eachother and plan the days. I marked genealogy related things with one color, other places I wanted to visit with another color and I also looked up a couple of restaurants. When I was done with the map I exported it as a kmzfile, emailed it to myself so I could open it on my iPad.

My planning in Google Earth

So, success? Well, I got the pictures all right. Coming to the Jewish museum in the morning it was closed and opened two hours later. That day we had already two different tours booked but we managed to squeeze the museum in between. Cemeteries, check, all three of them. Coming to the library it was closed. That was the last day and I wanted to buy some souvenirs. So, while I did the shopping my nice boyfriend went back to the library when they had opened. When they finally found the right edition of the encyclopedia it was all in Russian and the liberians at the library at the time didn't understand Russian. So no luck at the library.

Anyhow, pictures and more posted in upcoming blogposts.

Motivation Monday - My goals for August

I knowAugust has already started but today is also the first day of a three weeks long vacation for me. I was looking at my goals for July, perhaps I should have done that more often during July as well.

1. Order muster rolls for Andrew Richardson from the Wisconsin Veteran Museum. (15 minutes) 
2. Do the DNA test. (15 minutes) 
3. Write minimum three blogposts a week. (+ research about 20 hours work). 
4. Spend at least 5 hours to organize my digital documents.
5. Register headstones at Fleninge Cemetery at http://www.genealogi.se/gravproj/Gravsoklist.php

1: No
2: No
3: Yes
4: Well, I bought a new computer so that meant I had to spent a lot of time organizing all my genealogy moving it from the old one to the new one.
5: No

I have spent most of my genealogy time this month doing research in Sweden for a friend. It has been (and is still, Im not done yet) very interesting. It is nice to look into other databases than I normally do, look into other parishes and cities that I am not all familiar with. New mysteries to solve with minimum of clues. And then putting it together in a nice format for presentation which I usually don't do with my own stuff. I want to do research but this time I have been pushed out of my comfort zone (popular expression right) and work a little more with design. I use Swift Publisher for mac (I have had it for a while) and watching their youtube-presentations on how to really use the program was a motivator by itself. Since I work at a newspaper I am familiar with the Adobe CS package but at IT you don't exactly use it at a daily basis.

Something else I found very interesting was listening at the latest episode (158) of Genealogy Gems Podcast with Lisa Louise Cooke. She talked to the producer of the American Who Do You Think You Are? show and it was cool to hear about how they put those episodes together.

So, goals for vacation and August (Pretty much July Copy - Paste)

1. Order muster rolls for Andrew Richardson from the Wisconsin Veteran Museum. (15 minutes) 
2. Do the DNA test. (15 minutes) 
3. Finish the research from my friend 
4. Register headstones at Fleninge Cemetery at http://www.genealogi.se/gravproj/Gravsoklist.php

Besides that Im invited to a family reunion that I am really looking forward to. I am also sure I will be able to come up with a couple of interesting blogposts in a couple of weeks. With vacation I hope I will have some more time to keep up with genealogy news and discover more interesting genealogy blogs.

Wordless Wednesday - unidentified women

Friday's Faces from the Past - Great grandparents Berlin

My great grandparents, Nils Anton Berlin and Hanna Persson.

Nils Anton Berlin and Hanna Persson.
Photographer Herman Piil, Hässleholm

Nils Anton Berlin: Born December 6, 1888, Farstorp
Parents: Jöns Torkelsson Berlin and Else Månsdotter

Hanna Persson: Born September 12, 1881, Farstorp.
Parents: Born out of wedlock. Mother: Karna Nilsdotter Rickard, father Unknown.

Married: February 17, 1912

Nils and Hanna.

Hanna died February 24, 1958 and Nils May 12, 1976.

Sibling Saturday - Alice Charlotte Seck

Alice Charlotte Seck was my great grand aunt. She was the sixth child of Nikolai Seck and Marie Tedder. She was born December 28, 1883 in Rouge, Estonia. Birth record in the birth book below is in German.

Birth Alice Charlotte Seck
Saaga at http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1268.1.390:136

I have a picture of Alice Charlotte when she was young. I think she looks beautiful.

My great grand aunt - Alice Charlotte Seck

Out of the three sisters Seck (Alice, Ida and Therese), Alice was the only one who got married. She married Rudolf Kampus. Rudolf or Rudi as it says in his birth record was born Mars 20, 1882 in Voru, Estonia. His parents was Adam and Marie (Luus) Kampus.

Alice and Rudolf got married in 1906. Their record in the marriage book is in Russian. I like how they have crossed out the preprinted 189 in the headline and replaced it with 1900. Often they did write the names in latin fonts was well, but not always. So this is an example of the Seek variation spelling of Seck.

Marriage 1906, Rudolph Kampus and Alice Charlotte Seck
Saaga at http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1272.1.78:30

As far as I know, Alice and Rudolf had five children, Hilda Ellinor (1883-1979), Erika Erna (1908-1908), Robert (1909-1930), Karl Eugen (1914-?), Adolf (1918-1920).

Alice died in Tallinn in 1922, according to information I have got from my relatives. I think Rudolf died in 1926 and I think he is buried at Siselinna cemetery in Tallinn, Estonia.

Earlier posts about my Estonian Seck-line:

Nikolai Seck, where are you?

http://cousinlinda.blogspot.se/2013/03/church-record-sunday-nicolai-seck-where.html

Seck Siblings - Karl Johan Edmund

http://cousinlinda.blogspot.se/2013/07/sibling-saturday-seck-siblings-johann.html

Seck Siblings - August and August
http://cousinlinda.blogspot.se/2013/07/sibling-saturday-seck-siblings-august.html

Wordless Wednesday - Boys on horses

Two boys and two horses in front of a house. From an album that belonged to my great grandparents who lived in Farstop (Skåne, Sweden). I don't know who those boys are or where the picture was taken.

Tombstone Tuesday - Sailor Edvard Meijer, drowned in the Atlantic Ocean

A while I go I was at the old cemetery in Helsingborg (Sweden) uploading photos to Billiongraves.com. Walking around I often wonder about the people and about thier lives. Many of them passed away more that 100 years ago. Today I picked sailor Edvard Meijers' tombstone. Edvard August Ferdinand Meijer was born in Helsingborg (Sweden) July 30 in 1857. His father was brewer F A Meijer and his mother Carolina Marie Rolfes.

Sjömannen Edvard Meijer * 30/7 1857 + på Atlanten 29/7 1881

The tombstone says Sailor Edvard Meijer, born July 30 1857. Dead on the Atlantic Ocean July 27 1881. He died (drowed) one day before his 24th birthday. I tried to  find out more by searching some old newspaper to see if I could find out what happened but no luck this time.

Below is from the birth book. Edvards father, died in 1860. In 1861 Carolina remarried with a man called Johan Fredrik Granlund. He died only four years later, in 1865.

From the birth book.  Helsingborgs stadsförsamling (Maria) CI:9 page 527
(AID: v107209.b266.s527, NAD: SE/LLA/13171)

Edvard had a couple of siblings (those are the ones I have found):

• Agda Mathilda A, born October 19, 1851 in Halmstad
• Christina Constantina H, born August 26, 1855 in Halmstad
• Sigfrid Stefan Frithiof, born May 30, 1860, in Helsingborg,died in Christmas Eve (Dec 24), 1861
• Carl Johan Fredrik, born December 12, 1861 in Helsingborg

Looking through the deathbook I didnt find any record of him in July. Instead he is one of the last posts in 1881.

From the death book. Helsingborgs stadsförsamling (Maria) FI:7 1875-1887
(AID: v107238.b207, NAD: SE/LLA/13171)

Edvard and his family is not related to me.

Sunday's Obituary - Anna Nelson in Minnesota

For a long time I tried to trace my greatgrandmothers siblings Anna, Elna, Andrew and Nels who emigrated to the US. After many, many hours of searching I found them in Minnesota. This was also the time I first came in contact with Minnesota Historical Society. I was in for a surprise when I got the death certificate of Anna in the mail.  It said she died from fracture ribs, perforation lungs and chock.

Anna Nelson Death Certificate

Later when I got intouch with decentants of Anna I found out she had been kicked by a horse.

During the whole time I had been trying to search online newspapers to find information about what had happend to Anna. She was married to Jens Nelson. No matter how I tried I could not find anything.

Well, eventually I did find a small notice about Anna. The reason it took so long for me to find it was that I didn't consider the possibility for the newspaper to mix up her name. So, instead of Mrs. Jens Nelson they printed Mrs. Nels Jenson.

The Princeton Union September 28 1905, page 7

Sibling Saturday - Seck Siblings - August & August

August Seck was the first child of my Nikolai Seck and Marie Tedder. He was born in 1869 (June 10), the same year as they got married. He was born in Kopu in Estonia and his relationship to me, great grand uncle. Unfortunatly I haven't found his birth record.

August died in 1872 (April 7) only two months before his third birthday. At the time, Nikolai and Marie lived in Põltsamaa. Marie was pregnant with Therese Emile Marie Seck who was born only a couple of weeks after August had passed away. Below is a part of the death record (in German) of August.

Death of August Seck. Record is availaiable on-line at Saaga
http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1168.1.197:139

It is weird sometimes when you look at your family tree and a familysheet and see a family with perhaps seven children. It is easy to get the idea that was how the family looked like but for example in this case, none of the other Seck-siblings ever met thier older brother. He was born and dead before any of the others was born. That is the advantage with putting it all into a time perspective, like making a timeline (I like timelines A LOT!)

After August had died, Nikolai two daughters, Therese Emile Marie as I mentioned above and Ida who was born in 1874. In 1877 (April 11) they had another son. He was born in Rouge and his name was August Ludwig.

August Ludwig Seck birth, Rouge, April 11 in 1877.
Saaga http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1268.1.68:57

What else do I know about August Ludwig Seck? Well, according to information from my relatives, he died in 1925. Was he married, did he have a family? I don't know.

Saaga http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1296.1.440:100

Seck may have different spellings in different sources and documents like Seek, Sek, Seeck.

Earlier posts about my Estonian Seck-line:

Nikolai Seck, where are you?

http://cousinlinda.blogspot.se/2013/03/church-record-sunday-nicolai-seck-where.html

Seck Siblings - Karl Johan Edmund

http://cousinlinda.blogspot.se/2013/07/sibling-saturday-seck-siblings-johann.html

Wordless Wednesday - Unknown girl, Massachusetts

This photo with a cute girl is from a photo album I bought couple a years ago. Since the album is in Sweden she probably have relatives in Sweden. The photo is taken at A Sandberg on 287 Main Street, Everett, Massachusetts.

Unknown Girl -  A Sandberg, 287 Main Street, Everett, Massachusetts

I have an earlier blog post of another photo from the same album:
http://cousinlinda.blogspot.se/2013/06/wordless-wednesday-unknown-nilson-olson.html

Sibling Saturday - Seck siblings - Johann Karl Edmund

I have written about my great-great grandfather Nikolai Seck in an earlier blogpost, Nikolai Seck where are you?. As far as I know he had seven children, four sons (August, August Ludwig, Johann Karl Edmund, Nikolai Eduard) and three daughters (Therese Emile Marie, Ida, Alice Charlotte). I am trying to find out as much as possible about them.

Lets start with Johann Karl Edmund Seck. He was born, July 7 1879. Birthplace, Rouge, Vorumaa in Estonia.

This record is found at Saaga at http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1268.1.70:82

Headlines in the birthbook are in German

This book is in German. As you can see, the name is spelled Seeck. Sometimes you see that spelling, othertimes it is Seck (as my great-grandfather spelled it). There is also a Sek, Sekk and Seek spelling version.

A couple of other things to notice in this record. First of all, I am unable to understand what is written infront of the name of Nicolai. I guess it would be his occupation.

Occupation?

Then, there is the surname of Nicolai that is Seeck. But before that it says Alexander which would be the name of Nicolais' father. So far, so good, but under Alexander it is written "oder Nicolai's". So, does that mean that his fathers name was either Alexander or Nicolai?

Alexander Seeck is father.. oder Nicolai?

Then is the word griech, which means Greek in German and would mean that Nicolai belongs to the Greek Orthodox faith.

Below we have Mari, born Tedder, mother of Johann Karl Edmund. She is a Lutheran, it is written luth after her name.

A list of three names, I guess they were the sponsors at the christening. I have trouble reading what it says.

Sponsors?

1) ? ? Johannes ?
2) ? Edmund Reichard
3) Maria Thalberg, ?


I haven't found anymore records specific of Johann Karl Edmund, but I have found him with his family in a couple of other records.

From Saaga at http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1268.1.394:355

Here we have Nicolai Seeck (fathername is Alexander). What "gan. Ahrens" under his names means I have no clue. Far to the left there is something written as well. Can't make it out except for Schloss something. Birth and christening dates for the children August Ludwig, Johann Karl Edmund and Alice Charlotte.

Further to the right there is a column with this headline and this is what is commented on August, Johann and Alice, in that order.

In the last column I think it says "Ab und wann er (sie) die Gemeinde verlassen, oder als Slied derselben gestorben" which I guess means when he / she left / moved or died.

So, trying to read what is says, "alle drei kinder ab nach Helme mit ?? ?? ?? 1 August 1890 no 400" which would be "all three children moved to Helme with ?? ?? ?? August 1 1890 no 400".

I think it corresponds with this document. You have the date, the number 400 and moving from Rouge to Helme.

From Saaga at http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1296.1.440:100

What happened do Johann Karl Edmund Seck, my great-grand uncle? According to information I have got from relatives he married a woman called Katja Onni, they had a son and Johann Karl Edmund Seck died in 1923.

Quick fact sheet : Johann Karl Edmund Seck

Workday Wednesday

My grandfather, to the left, Erik Berlin. He was born in 1912 so I guess the picture is taken in the late 1920s. Probably in Gothenburg (Sweden) area.

Erik Berlin to the left

Motivation Monday - My goals for July

I had four genealogy goals for June:

1) Register remaining headstones for Kropp Cemetery at  http://www.genealogi.se/gravproj/Gravsoklist.php
Done!

2) Write minimum two blogposts a week, at least one about my Verno-line and one about my Seck-line.
Done!

3) Order a DNA test.
Done!

4) Order muster rolls for Andrew Richardson from the Wisconsin Veteran Museum.
Not done.

So, July, here are my genealogy goals:

1. Order muster rolls for Andrew Richardson from the Wisconsin Veteran Museum. (15 minutes)
2. Do the DNA test. (15 minutes)
3. Write minimum three blogposts a week. (+ research about 20 hours work).
4. Spend at least 5 hours to organize my digital documents.
5. Register headstones at Fleninge Cemetery at http://www.genealogi.se/gravproj/Gravsoklist.php

There.

Ready.

Steady.

Go!

Unidentified. Probably in Farstorp area, south of Sweden

Friday’s Faces from the Past - Farstorp

Photo from 1909. The churches in the picture are Farstorp and Hästveda. My greatgrandfather Nils Anton Berlin was born and lived in Farstrop so when I found this photo I happily bought it, he was probably familiar with one or two of those priests.

Names in the picture. Herslow, Herrlin, Person, Lafvesson, Billing, Haslov, Rosenberg,
Ström, Helmers, Andersson, Theding. Löfström, Alf, Fokman, Pire

Wordless Wednesday - Olov Hansson

Photo from an album I bought at a fleemarket a couple of years ago. Next to the photo it is written Olov Hansson. Photo is taken in Malmö, Sweden at Atelier Favorit.

Olov Hansson