We have a break until our next class September 3rd about Cemetery Records and the September 17th about using newspapers. It might be a good time to do a little reflecting. Here are some questions to consider:

1. What have you learned about how to do family history this year or this summer?

2. What have you tried based on that learning?

3. Have you taken that learning further doing learning beyond the presentation?

4. What have you learned about your family history based on that new learning and work?

Topic-wise we have had presentations on using city directories, breaking through brick walls, applying naming patterns, and researching Dutch, Missouri, Norwegian, and Irish records. We also learned how to use AI, German Church records and why we should care about Social History. Wow, we really had a lot of new information to gather and use. Have you applied it to your family history work? 

I have tried, sometimes with more success than other times. Sometimes it didn’t apply to my family, but I tried to take something from it and apply it to my areas of interest.

The most recent class on German church records didn’t prove fruitful but I did learn, as I wrote about before, that my German ancestors on the line I was researching were actually Swiss who moved to Germany and then immigrated so I tried to apply the church records to Switzerland. In doing that I also revisited my German resource information and learned that Swiss records were often kept in the original town or “commune” that they were from but may not live anymore. Because of the Swiss “rights of citizenship” the records stay in the original commune.  The next step is to figure out the original commune. Whew, just when I thought I was making progress. Hey, maybe that is why records say they were from Hirzel and they show the surname in citizenship records in Pfaffikon! I just realized this as I am writing this. I guess that is another piece of evidence supporting the writing of your information as you go.

As you reflect, think forward as well. What do you want to learn from cemeteries, newspapers, one-name studies, and from “The Occasional Genealogist”? Are you familiar with these resources? Is there anything you can do to get ready for these presentations besides get sign-up for the classes? (Cheap plug, I know!) Interesting fact, Family Tree Magazine has an article this issue on German records and one on cemetery research.

Keep learning and happy hunting!

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com

I have been putting off writing this week as I really haven’t found too much. I was able to find a passenger’s list from Germany to Philadelphia for 1727 with my ancestor’s name and family and really that was huge for me. It is the first such link I have found. The disappointment was that even though I found it and the name of the location they departed from, I could not find any church records that listed the family or gave me further information specifically about them.

What I did find was general information about the historical time and location. Many of the Germans in the part of Germany that my ancestors seemed to be from, weren’t German. I know, probably not a huge surprise to most. So, if not German, where did they come from? It seems that many had immigrated earlier to Germany from Switzerland so it may be that I am Swiss. That makes my “’Heidi’ heart happy.” 

Here is where doing research this far back is challenging for me as an amateur. Although there seems to be agreement that the family surname comes from Canton Zurich, Switzerland and that it was strongly connected to the Reformed Church, there are differences beyond that. Trying to find the exact location for church records means trying to figure out which of these theories is correct. Were they from Hirzel, Switzerland or from Pfaffikon in Canton Zurich? Were these places close enough to be one in the same at some point or one smaller and the other housed the church that they attended? Or were they from some other location all together.

I have run across this kind of debate by people writing comments in family history before. I have a surname on my mother’s side that is Brandenburg. Were they part of Brandenburg, Germany as some think or “no, people didn’t use the name of the area as their surname”? In this case, did the Hartzell surname which can be Hertzel- Hirtzel- Hirzel come from the name of the location in Switzerland or have nothing to do with it?

It seems I have a lot more work to do. Researching Switzerland might be fun! Too bad I don’t ski or own goats, but wouldn’t that be fun. (Side note: While I was a principal at Mt Rainier High School someone brought in goats to clear out a wetlands on the ground. I thought they were joking because of my name and the school mascot, the Rams. It turns out they weren’t and the goats did their job, and no cross-town rivalry did harm to the goats.)

With all that said, I am off to the “Alps” and to get ready for the next class in September on Cemeteries. Happy researching!

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.org

Several mini topics are going through my mind currently as I try to follow through on what I said I would do last issue, finding one ancestor that I can confirm from across the seas.

A) Staying true to objective or goal without distractions by “shiny objects” B) Using small steps to get to the larger family history goal C) Step 1: Find an immigrant and Step 2: Review my resources about immigration.

Did I stay focused? Yes, I did. By committing to the objective both to myself and in writing to you, I stayed focused. I think we have said to have a clear objective when you start your research just about every time we talk about how to do research. Instead of wandering about, up and down my family tree, I started at the top and looked for the ancestor that I could confirm as being born in another country (in this case Germany) and died in in the US (in this case (Northampton Co, Pennsylvania.)

During other research times, I would look for one ancestor and then the next and then the next, etc. without following through and finding the evidence for any. Too many balls in the air as they say. This time I didn’t let those other distractions take my attention. Part of this was a reminder from my teaching days of strategies for goal setting and a new topic I have been reading about, Kaizen. They are really the same thing I just didn’t know it. Kaizen is “the approach to goal setting with a step-by-step improvement mindset.” ( Saito, Makoto: Ikigai, Kaizen and Hansei; Troutdale, Oregon,2024.)

All this means is to take your work one little chunk at a time. For example, if I want to lose 30 pounds it is better to set a goal of 1-2 pounds this week and celebrate that success. It is much more manageable than 30 pounds in 3.5 months as long as the celebration doesn’t become eating a gallon of ice cream and skipping the exercise for a week.

In the family history case, it means for me taking one line and finding the ancestor who was the first to be born abroad and die in America. I found a name and then followed the next step to look at the resource others used to verify the birth and death. I go lucky with a researcher who had valid documentation, including the family story and where it came from. It came in part from Find-A-Grave but was found also in a book by a professional genealogist and in a family history book that I have on the family surname. (one-named studies is a class to come.) This is triangulation.

My next step was to review the sources I have on my shelf about immigration. I took notes and looked specifically at what would apply to the time period and to Germany and Pennsylvania, as those were the countries of origin and destination listed in the documentation. 

I haven’t yet looked for the immigration records to verify that but I have a place to start as we look at our next class on Germany. Cemetery information in the documentation helped as well and that will be coming up in September.

This is running a bit long but I wanted to leave you with this thought. We have talked about “your current level of awareness” in the past and boy did that play a part in my finding this week. All of these resources I have had and read in the past but because of the reading I have been doing on Ikigai and Kaizen and the HQ classes I have taken in the past years, I found new meaning and understanding in the materials. The information had a place to sit in my head that was new since the last time I read it. Funny how that works, huh! Keep learning and keep researching.

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.org.

Are you getting ready for the next class? Next week we look at German Church Records. I have pulled up past presentations I have watched or classes at HQ and reviewed what they had to say about researching German ancestors. I am comparing the information, looking specifically for church records. I am doing that so that when our speaker gives her presentation on August 6th the information will be somewhat familiar. It has a place to go, so to speak, in my personal filing cabinet called my brain and it has something to latch onto. 

My ancestors have mostly been in America for a long time so finding someone who has immigrated seems to be a challenge because most of the records just take them further toward the east coast. This week I am going to commit to attempting to confirm a German connection. I have some hints that lead me to Swiss-German ancestry, to Brandenburg and to other German areas but no firm identification. 

You would think with a name like Geise it would be easy but…that is my husband’s family. His grandmother came from Germany. My German connections have surnames such as Vance, Hartzell, Kreilling, Kingsley, Wolgomat, and Brandenburg. Sometimes I think the educator in me is too stuck on finding the perfect record that says “this ancestor from 1745 is the ancestor of Heidi Geise in Washington State in 2026.” It know it has to be a combination of records that together bring this 1745 ancestor to my connection. I also know that I won’t find them all on digital records on Family Search and Ancestry or My Heritage. I have to remind myself that genealogy is not easy but if I remember why I am doing it the effort is worth the work. Right?!

I ran across a hint the other day that summed it all up. I won’t put the comment in here but basically it was this person born in this year in this location couldn’t be the same one with the same name nearby but different spouse and the 5 others in the same area around the same time with the same name! It ended with “There are too many Samuel Vances.” 

All of this is also the reason it is very helpful to have a genealogy “buddy,” someone to bounce ideas off of. You don’t even have to be researching the same people of the same locations or time periods. Just someone else interested in family history that doesn’t roll their eyes and glaze over when you start talking genealogy. HQRL is a great place to find that help and support as well as some potential records. Just saying.

But I am taking a side trip aren’t I. I wrote this commitment so that I would be more likely to follow through. It is kind of like that exercise plan. If I don’t commit to it in writing or verbally or with a buddy that exercise bike becomes a storage unit for toddler toys and ironing. So I am going to find one family that I can trace to Germany and see what I can find about where the came from, where they landed in America, and when they came. If I can find that, then researching in those German Church records should be a lot easier and will help confirm their German connection.

We have some great classes coming up after this one: September is Cemeteries and Newspapers, and October is One-Name Studies. Sign-up!

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com