I think I have a new addiction. At least it feels that way: I’m certainly wanting to do it to the exclusion of other activities (such as watching Survivor). What is it? Genealogy.
Here’s an example. Tonight I was toodling around looking into the Abraham Meyer family tree. I have a recording from my grandfather noting that the Meyers came from Alsace-Lorriane in France (some were from Paris) to Brooklyn, then to Kansas City, and then to Chicago. They were in the stockyard business. I was having trouble finding the records in the census because Meyer is a very common name. I had previously found a record that showed Abraham Meyer and his wife Julia (Powell) Meyer living as boarders with some other Powell relatives in Chicago in 1900. He was in the Cattle business. His father was from Germany. This was clearly my line. Then I found Abraham again… with a number of siblings whose names and birthdays matched information I already had in my records. However, here he was in Kansas City, married (but his wife wasn’t listed), in the Stockyard business. He was listed with the rest of his family, and his parents, Henry and Augusta, were from France. All of the children were listed as being born in New York, and I did find some early records establishing some of the older Meyers in Brooklyn around 1880. Then two realizations hit me: (1) people could be listed in the census twice in those days; and (2) Alsace-Lorraine was disputed territory on the border of France and Germany. This fit with the story; it fit with my records. I felt that this was strong enough to make a match. It allowed me to identify some previously unidentified Meyer lines, as well as to confirm some information I had regarding one of his brothers. It was quite the exciting feeling. I’ve had some additional fun finds with the Powell and Faigin lines, and I already have an inquiry with my cousin Erik (who I know through MySpace — for the Davis-ites, he used to live in Davis and was a bagpipe player) about his family line (Crevoi, which connects to Deborah Faigin).
I think I’m going to have fun with this for a bit…
