My Danish ggg grandparents

Oddly enough, I hadn't worked much in FamilySearch.org until the past week. But I have hit the jackpot in adding new branches to the tree as well as verifying and confirming information.

Just minutes ago, I discovered my great great great grandparents from Denmark: Laust Laursen and Karen Poulsen. And it all had to do with setting aside some previously held beliefs and thinking outside the box.

Information I had from another relative researching our family indicated that my great-great grandparents were Peder Jeremiasen and Elsie Kathrine Polsdatter. They immigrated from Denmark to Waterloo, Iowa in 1888. Their immigration records had been elusive to me until I anted up and got the World subscription on Ancestry.com and I learned that they first arrived in Quebec before going on to Waterloo. Only a few weeks ago, I discovered the family in the census in the Dansk Demografisk Database.

I have been looking for Elsie in searches for Polsdatter and Plsdr (another abbreviation I discovered was used). Last week, on FamilySearch.org, I discovered the marriage information on their son (my great grandfather), Jens Petersen and my great grandmother, Caroline Hansen. The record listed the names of Jens' parents as Peder Jeremiasen and Elsie Lauridsen. Lauridsen? What happened with Polsdatter?

I continued various searches and spelling variations on FamilySearch.org and just discovered Elsie's death information in the Iowa Death and Burials database. Everything matched up and this record told me that her parent's names were Laust Laursen and Karen Poulsen - taking my Danish roots back another generation - and through a female ancestor! Danish naming tradition changes surnames with each generation, so this is no easy task! Once I saw the name Poulsen, it became clear how someone had arrived at the surname Polsdatter in the earlier research.

This is, indeed, an exciting success story as I've never really believed it was going to be possible to actually find my Danish ancestors. Now, with a new generation and new names, the search will continue!

Interlibrary Loan and my Genea-Angel, Barbara Poole

The story of my first experience with inter-library loan has a new chapter. There's good news and there's bad news. The bad news is that the local library was not able to obtain a copy of the book I wanted. The good news is that the Geneablogger Gods looked kindly on me and sent a guardian angel to help me with my quest.

After some exchanges via this blog and Facebook, my blogger buddy, Barbara Poole from Life From the Roots, asked me if the New England Historic Genealogical Society had the book in its library because she was planning to go there Tuesday (today). I searched and sure enough, they have it! I reported back to Barbara with the author, title, the call number and location of the book as well as the pages I was interested in reading.

When I arrived home from work this evening, there was a message from Barbara stating that she had obtained copies of the pages I was looking for. And the copies were attached! WOW.

As I started to download the images, I realized how much information I now have to assimilate about this branch of my family tree.

But even more importantly, it reaffirmed my belief that genealogists are the best group of people in the world.

Thank you, my friend. I hope I will be able to return the favor some day.

Follow Friday: Review of 5 of Family Tree Magazine's Best FREE web sites

 I love doing my genealogy research on line. I love reading about genealogy online. But I also look forward with anticipation to my print copy of Family Tree Magazine in the mail each month. And this month's issue has some real treasures. And where do the treasures lead me? Online, of course!

Family Tree Magazine published its list of 101 Best FREE Genealogy Web sites. Yep, browse and search to your heart's content and don't shell out a penny. Many are ones you already know about, but there are still some I haven't seen before.


I decided to select five of the sites I'd never visited before to see what they have to offer.


Being a newspaper junkie, the first site I visited was NewspaperAbstracts.com. It is organized differently than I would expect. A search on abstracts from Lancaster county, Nebraska yielded 11 hits, none of which were from Nebraska newspapers. The subjects of the articles refer to Nebraska place names or people from Nebraska. In that regard, the organization of the site allows one to think outside the box and not restrict oneself to newspapers of a specific locale. The site has a search feature, but a surname search gives results that only list the newspaper name. I had better luck using a standard Google site search string "kelly site: http//www.newspaperabstracts.com." Seeing the results in Google allowed me to see summaries of the article. The site has a yahoo discussion group where you can sign up for their e-newsletter. Overall rating: C.

Next up was the New York Public Library digital collection. The site states that it is partnering with Google to have a portion of its pre-1923 books scanned for Google books. I found that some manuscripts that relate to some of my Bellinger line from the Mohawk Valley are in the collection, but I could not review a digital copy. Now, once you visit the Digital Library, you will find much more interesting and accessible fare. In the History and Geography section, I found some of George Catlin's beautiful images of Native Americans. I found a collection of cabinet card photographs. Once I found the collection of old sheet music, I knew that I would have to make a return trip to this web site!

The site also includes a collection of Ellis Island photographs, postcards, cartoons. I know that my return trip to this site will undoubtedly last an hour or two. Overall rating: A+.


I collect cookbooks. I don't actually use them, I just read them. So my next site was Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project. There are cookbooks featuring French cuisine, Creole cooking; another called The Frugal Housewife (some things never change), a manual for Army cooks, and a White House cookbook from 1897. It's a very interesting site which I hope to return to - even though I'm not quite sure how it made a list of the top 101 genealogy sites. The Library of Congress has chosen to include this site in its collection. Interest Rating: A; Genealogy Rating: D; Overall Rating for Genealogists: C+.

Next stop was a techie product site called Evernote.com. This allows you to make notes, do screen captures, and organize various bits and pieces of information and store it all on the web. Rather than tell you any more about this site, I'll let you watch this video:



As I'm already sold on Microsoft OneNote and use it almost daily, I'm probably not going to switch, but for those looking for a free product that does something similar, this might meet your needs. Overall use for a genealogist: B+

My last stop on the tour was the Danish Demographic Database. I wondered if I could find anything on my Danish ancestors. WOW! Within seconds of initiating a search on Danish immigrants, I discovered this record on my great grandfather, Jens Petersen, then using the surname Jeremiasen. He was from Terndrup, Denmark, and with his parents and siblings, on their way to Waterloo, Iowa. His parents and siblings also showed up in the search results. Jens' father's occupation was Arbejder, which I guess means he was a laborer. Jens' occupation was a Barn? Say what? Thanks to my friend, Google Translate, I discovered that is Danish for Child. Whew!

One more search while I'm on this site - let's see what the Census search comes up with. I entered great-great grandfather's name, Peder Jeremiasen:

It just doesn't get any better than this! There's my family! My great-great grandparents: Peder and Else. The Larsen surname is new information. Other family members had given me her last name as Polsdatter. And here, the children have the surname Pedersen, as with Danish naming tradition. They did change the spelling to Petersen once settled in the U.S. "Hans Hustru" by Else's name is translated as "His Wife." Peder's occupation of husfader jordbruger og pottemager translates as "The father a farmer and potter." And from this record, I now have birthplaces for these members of the family.

Was it sheer luck or divine intervention that I saved this web site until last? Based on ease of use and my personal discoveries, I've got to give this one an Overall Rating of A++ !

Success Story! Dr William D Kelly Obituary

Never underestimate the power of the Internet and the generosity of fellow genealogists.

On January 10, 2010, I posted a request for an obituary of Dr. William D. Kelly of St. Paul, Minnesota. In addition to posting on this blog, I also posted a query on a message board on Ancestry.com. Thanks to the Minnesota death index search of the Minnesota State Historical Society I had narrowed down my search to two William Kellys in Ramsey county. One died in 1940 and the other died in 1943.

Not long ago, I received a special surprise in my email. A generous volunteer sent me not only a copy of the obituary from the newspaper, but also a copy of William's death certificate. Thanks to both, I now know that he is buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Before I received this information, I continued my search for Dr. Kelly's obituary. A Google books search resulted in a reference in the journal of the Minnesota Medical Association, Minnesota Medicine. Unfortunately, it was only a limited preview and the entire obituary was not available online. I found the website for the Minnesota Medical Association and sent an email to the contact listed. He referred my request to the editor of the publication, who immediately responded with a scanned copy of the page from the journal. It had helped that the Google book search indicated exactly the volume and page number I was looking for so I could provide that with my request. As Dr. Kelly's brother was also a physician in St. Paul, I obtained a copy of his obituary from Minnesota Medicine in the same manner. Kudos to the Minnesota Medical Association for their willingness to help and their prompt response on both occasions!

And, of course, my thanks to the gracious volunteer who took the time to lookup the newspaper obituary and the copy of the death certificate.

Thanks to people like this, our work as family historians is a little easier.

Food for Thought - recipes from the relatives

I was cleaning out some old recipe books a couple years ago, planning to recyle some of them to a charity. Thank goodness my father looked through them because he discovered that one that was slated for donation was a 1950 cookbook compilation from the American Legion Auxiliary in Hardy, Nebraska, where much of our family resided for several decades. As I looked through it, not only did I find familiar names, but photographs of several family members who contributed recipes for the publication. I'm going to have to try this cake recipe some day! It sounds good!

You Can't Ignore the In-Laws - a long lost relatives success story!

Every few weeks, I go through the photo album that belonged to my great-grandmother, Mary (Minnie) Welch Kelly, who began her life in Connecticut and moved to Nebraska as a young woman in her twenties. That photo album, along with her autograph book and the autograph book of her sister, Nellie Welch, gave me the first real clues to the relationships in the Welch family.

An earlier post on this blog back in January shared my success in identifying members of the Garrigus family - one of Minnie's other sisters, Agnes Welch, married Clarence Gregory Garrigus and they had two children, Alfred and Ethel.

Just last weekend, I discovered obituaries of Clarence and Agnes in the Hartford (CT) Courant newspaper. I knew that Clarence was an inventor as I had discovered one of his patent applications online. His obituary states, "With his wife, Mrs. Agnes Welch Garrigus, he developed the Universal Breadmixer in 1903. The couple used their kitchen as a laboratory."

The obituary goes on to say, "During the World Fair in St. Louis, Mo., in 1904, he passed out bread samples made from the recipe of his wife, who used the new mixer."

The bells in my head started to go off and I returned to great-grandmother Minnie's photo album once again.


Far right, Agnes Welch Garrigus with her son, Alfred Garrigus, at the World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri in 1904.

I had previously identified Alfred from two other photographs in the album, so this elegant woman with him in the St. Louis photographs has to be his mother, Agnes Welch Garrigus.


Agnes Welch Garrigus and Alfred Garrigus

This photograph identifies the address of where the photograph was taken, but I haven't been able to determine what it says - yet.

This series of photographs in Minnie's album also includes the man who I believe is Clarence Gregory Garrigus.


Dan Kelly gives Clarence Garrigus a ride.

The photo album also includes photographs of the Garrigus family in Nebraska. I am inferring that the Garrigus family visited Agnes' sister, Minnie Welch Kelly, in Nebraska on the same visit to the West when they attended the World's Fair in St. Louis. In the photo above, my great-grandfather, Dan Kelly (Minnie's husband) is having a bit of fun for the camera by giving his brother-in-law, Clarence Garrigus, a ride in the wheelbarrow.

So - after all of these years, I am able to begin identifying the other family members in Minnie's photo album. And this was because I located the obituary of Clarence Garrigus that told about the 1904 trip to the World's Fair in St. Louis.

Follow all of the leads and clues that come your way - and don't ignore the in-laws!

Success Story: Long Lost Relative Discovered!

William Kieran Langdon



I've been working on a timeline on William Kieran Langdon for several months. The story of a legal squabble within his family has captivated me. In summary, his parents were Margaret Kelly and Michael J. Langdon. He was born in 1885 in Texas, even though his death certificate says he was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'll go with Texas as that shows up on numerous census records.

Michael J. Langdon spent the last four years of his life in insane asylums in New York and Nebraska. A few years later, Margaret Kelly Langdon, as guardian of her son, William Kieran Langdon, had her son committed to the State Hospital in Nevada, Vernon County, Missouri where he resided for 15 years. Shortly after his release, he filed suit to obtain the portion of his father's estate to which he was entitled. His mother had appropriated much of his share of the estate for her own use. She had involved her brothers, Daniel Kelly (my great grandfather) and Michael C. Kelly as bondsmen on the money and they became liable for the bond. This portion of the case went to the Nebraska Supreme Court.

So - I began my quest to find William Kieran Langdon. His 1918 draft registration showed him working at the State Hospital in Nevada. For months, his entry in the U S Census records have eluded me. This past weekend I received a copy of a photograph of William Kieran Langdon playing the piano. The photograph made me go back to the 1920 and 1930 census records for Nevada, Missouri. There I found a Jack Langdon, born in Texas in 1885 and by 1930 was married to a woman named Sarah. His occupation? He was a musician in a dance hall in 1920 and in 1930 a musician and teacher. This was definitely starting to look like a lead.

Through the Missouri Digital archives, I discovered a death certificate for Sarah Langdon, who died in Nevada, Missouri on 14 November 1954. The death certificate lists her husband as Wm. K. Langdon.

Through the magic of Google news archives, I discovered some issues of the Nevada Daily News and after going through the the issues from 1957 discovered a notice of the death of Jack Langdon and one about the funeral rites for W. K. "Jack" Langdon. That last one was confirmation that the William Kieran Langdon I'd been seeking and "Jack" Langdon were one and the same person.

As I searched some more in the Nevada Daily Mail,I found some advertisements that showed he played piano at the movie theater, and that the Jack Langdon Red Hot Pepper Orchestra performed on Christmas, 1926 at a place called Haddock.

The 1957 death notice for Jack Langdon and his death certificate both state he was a retired taxi driver. Now I am curious how he went from being a musician to becoming a taxi driver. He left a wife at the time of his death, but Sarah had died three years earlier. His death certificate states his wife was Dorothy Langdon.

The few pieces of the puzzle that I discovered just make me hungry to discover even more!

Adding to the Welch Family

The recent discovery of the photograph of the grave marker for Mark Welch and his wife, Sarah Conneally (my great, great grandparents) in Connecticut has put my focus on Connecticut research this past week. And I once again returned to the autograph book that belonged to their daughter, Nellie Welch.

The autograph book includes entries from "Aunt Winnie" of Goshen, CT, "Cousin Annie" of Goshen, CT, and William E Welch of Goshen, CT. A search of the Welch family living in Goshen at this time resulted in several census records for this family. The head of the household is Edward Welch, who would be the brother of Mark Welch.

The children of Edward and Winnifred Welch were: Mary (b. about 1856), William (b. about 1858), Mark (b. about 1860), Richard (b. about 1862), James (b. about 1864), Anna (b. Feb 1866). Edward (b. about 1867) and John (b. about 1869).


1870 Census Record for the family of Edward and Winnifred Welch

So far, the only one of the children I've been able to verify in later census records is Anna, who married Mr. Kirwin and had a son, James Kirwin. Mr. Kirwin died before 1930, as Anna is a widow at the age of 34. Her parents, Edward and Winnifred, are living with Anna and Anna's son, James.

By 1910, Edward Welch has died, and Winnifred is living with Anna and her son.

Are any members of this Welch family your ancestor? If so, I'd love to hear from you and share information on this family and their descendants.

Success Story: When the pieces come together . . .

After receiving the photo of the gravestone of my great great grandparents, Mark Welch and Sarah Conneally, I went back to work on filling in some pieces of the Welch family genealogy. I'd had a great start as I have the autograph books that belonged to my great grandmother, Minnie Welch Kelly and her sister, Nellie Welch. Members of the family signed their entries as cousin, brother, uncle, aunt, etc. This really provided me with the first instance of being able to connect family members together.

Email correspondence amongst my fellow Conneally "cousins" and family history researchers continued to present some more clues to family relationships. We became intriguted with the 1900 census which showed Mark Welch at age 74, widowed and living with (as indexed) Clarence Gawngus, Margartta Gawngus and their child, Alfred C. Gawngus.

Other searches of the Gawngus name showed a possible variation as Gaengus. Again, this produced very little in other records searches. So I began searching based only the first names of the family. This turned out to be successful and I discovered the correct surname for this family was Garrigus.

My next step was to, once again, look through my great grandmother's photograph album that included photos of the family members in Connecticut. There I found the photograph above. The handwriting certainly confirmed the last name of Garrigus and there was Alfred, who was listed as their son in 1900 census.

One of the Conneally "cousins" asked if the family had other children. I had come across a daughter, Ethel, in a later census. Back to the photograph album.



Alfred and Ethel Garrigus

Aha! Written on the photo were the names Alfred and Ethel. The connection to the Welch family was made! From that point, I was able to find several members of the Garrigus family which I have added to my family tree. I am hopeful that I can locate some obituaries and tombstone locations that may lead me to more of the Welch family members.

You just never know what will happen when one thing leads to another.

William D Kelly - my great-great grandfather

So often, family history information shows up when and where you least expect it. I've been continuing my research on the family of Daniel Kelly of St. Paul, Minnesota and while scouring the old issues of the St. Paul Daily Globe, I came across an obituary notice of my great-great grandfather, William D. Kelly, who was a brother of Daniel Kelly.

William had lived in St. Paul, MN from the late 1850s to the mid 1860s and had been in Nebraska for nearly 30 years when he died. And yet, here is his obituary from the St. Paul, Minnesota newspaper, more than 400 miles away.

This death notice also confirms another piece of information for me. I knew that William, his wife, Mary, and their children took off on one of the westward expeditions from St. Paul led by Captain James Fisk. Daughter Mary Kelly Fitzgerald was about 12 years old at the time and described their journey in detail in a 1938 newspaper interview. Based upon Mary's descriptions and the printed newspaper reports and journals from the time, I had concluded that the Kelly family was on the Fisk expedition of 1864. That date is confirmed in William's obituary. It is so nice when you are able to find corroborating information from different sources!

Date of newspaper notice: February 21, 1896.

Many "New" Kelly Relatives . . .

As usual, I was spending my Sunday afternoon seeing if I could add some more branches to the family tree. I went back to work on some of the descendants of Daniel W. Kelly of St. Paul, Minnesota. He was the brother of my great-great grandfather, William D. Kelly, who also lived in St. Paul for a while. They were two of the sons of Kieran (or Keron) Kelly from Kilkenny, Ireland.

I was fortunate to find an obituary on one of Daniel's granddaughters, who died in 2007. It was an online obituary and I had to pay $2.99 for it. That turned out to be quite a bargain considering all of the Kelly kin I was able to add to my family tree. With direct descendants from Daniel, their spouses and in-laws, the total additions to the family tree already exceeds 50 "new" family members.

As these new discoveries brought the generations up to present day, I'm hopeful that I'll be in touch with some of the long lost relatives at some point. I want to respect their privacy, so I won't post their names or locations on this blog.

But - if you are a descendant of Daniel W. Kelly who was born in July 1837 in Ireland and his wife, Mary Collins, born about 1842 and died about 1894. I'd love to hear from you!

It's definitely a small world.