In Search of...Doctor Link, and the fantastic NARA newsletter!

Greetings to all, as we begin the Great Lenten season!

The flowers are starting to peek through, after all of the heavy rains out here in California. I've seen a few of our state flower, the Golden Poppy, on the hills heading south toward the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm looking forward to seeing the blankets of "Cheeto dust" on hills in the central valley next time I head down to Los Angeles. What is this "Cheeto dust," you may ask? Here's a photo I took last year of poppy blankets that look like someone dumped the dust out of a Cheetos package onto the hills:

We were still in drought conditions last year. This year, the hills will be much greener, probably with a great deal more "Cheeto dust"!

In Search of...Doctor Link!
One of the things I enjoy most about Genealogy is the "sleuthing" process. The joy of uncovering lost information about an historical person far outweighs the frustration of finding nothing at all for long stretches. Sometimes, the search reminds me of a TV documentary series from the 1970s and 1980s that I enjoyed. It starred Leonard Nimoy back then.

It's great to see that the series has had a recent re-boot starring the actor who has done such a wonderful job in Nimoy's iconic role of Spock, as well!

Who is this Doctor Link, of whom I am in search? He is my husband Marty's great-great grandfather. Johann Franz Xaver Link (1818-1882) was born in the Baden-Wurttemberg region of Germany and emigrated to the United States in about 1850. By 1852, he was living in the mining town of Yuba, California, according to a special gold-rush-era census taken by the state that year. His status as a doctor is clear by the way he was addressed from the time of his arrival in the U.S., although the 1852 census listed him as a "miner." Here is a newspaper clipping from a Yuba County newspaper that mentions him:

(Marysville Daily Herald, vol. VII, no. 1, 6 August 1856, p 2)

In December of 1859, Dr. Link married Anna Elisa, the daughter of California pioneer John Sutter, in Sutter County. Rather immediately, Dr. and Mrs. Link moved to Acapulco, Mexico, where Anna Elisa's brother, August Sutter, was living. The couple resided in Mexico for the remainder of their lives. Their first son, Emile, was born in Acapulco in September of 1860, and Marty's great-grandfather Victor was born there in 1863.

Because Dr. Link was married to the daughter of one of the most famous California pioneers, he is mentioned in many books and articles about the Sutter family. However, it appears that historical interest in Dr. Link has begun and ended with his marriage to Anna Elisa Sutter. My quest, then, is to uncover as much biographical information about Dr. Link as I can, not only because he is an ancestor of my husband, but because there is every reason to believe that his life could prove to be an immensely fascinating study.

In the course of a dozen years or so, Dr. Link and his wife lived in three different countries. My curiosity is sharply piqued by wonder over the countless adventures they must have had!

In Germany Dr. Link was called Xaver, in the U.S. Xavier, and in Mexico Javier. Given the relatively common use of the German surname Link, I'm grateful that the first name he used is rather easy to trace. It is an exciting prospect to learn more about Dr. Link and his family's life in all three of his countries of residence. Hopefully soon I will have a great deal more to report on the currently somewhat mysterious Dr. Link!

The Fantastic Newsletter from the National Archives!

To close today's post (and speaking of "links"), I'd like to suggest that you all check out the following link for the National Archives Catalog Newsletter, where you can peruse their most recent issues. Each one features items from the National Archives collections, with highly interesting write-ups by NARA curators. They are always brief but full of information that never fails to amaze!

Annie

"It is necessary for a Christian to fast, in order to clear his mind, to rouse and develop his feelings, and to stimulate his will to useful activity." -- Saint John of Kronstadt

Other Recent Articles Published Elsewhere!

Dear Readers,

Enough time has passed since the publication of two of my recent articles, that I can share them with you through links on this blog!

The first is part of a series of I have been writing about people of German ancestry who have been particularly important to the history of California. It is an article about Adolph Sutro that was in Volume 36, Issue #1 of Der Blumenbaum, published by the Sacramento German Genealogical Society.

The other appeared in the weblog of the California Genealogical Society, about the Genealogy Collection at the Los Angeles Central Library.

The late President Richard Nixon (a fascinating, albeit infamous character) once stated that writers need to have "an iron butt." You were correct, Mr. President, and it's time to get my bootie back to current projects!

Until next time,
Annie

D.C., the Junior Sutter, and Southern Ohio Cemeteries

Hope the New Year has treated you well, so far!

Marty and I took a two-week vacation in the D.C. area, house-sitting for some friends who have a gorgeous home in the woods of Maryland. Having been to D.C. on many previous occasions, we have long-ago covered the essential tourist sites. Marty even worked in the White House about three years ago on a webcast project for President Obama. Nonetheless, there is always something interesting to do in our nation's capitol, as well as in Virginia and Maryland, so we made excellent use of our time there.

Armed with Library of Congress library cards (not difficult to obtain -- see the LOC website!), Marty and I toured the magnificent Jefferson Building of the LOC and spent time in the Main Reading Room. Of course, I had plans for research at both the LOC and the library of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Library of Congress Main Reading Room

(photo by Carol M. Highsmith)

Last September, I had passed through the D.C. area briefly and had made an attempt at touring the new Smithsonian Museum of African American History, and I managed to get into this popular museum, but the lines for the main historical galleries were too long. I knew that Marty and I would be back in the area, and this time there was a smaller crowd. As you can probably imagine, this museum contains some powerful, emotional exhibits. It is a must-see!

Another new museum in D.C. is the Museum of the Bible, which of course we had to check out. Its exhibits contain an impressive collection of both original and facsimile artifacts as well as videos, living-history displays, and even a virtual-reality section (which we skipped). This museum is decidedly non-preachy and concentrates its efforts upon the historical and social impacts that the Bible has made over the centuries. It is privately owned and is therefore not free to visit, but it is well worth visiting at least once!

Logo for the Museum of the Bible

(clever use of a rotated B symbolizing 10-Commandments tablets!)

Another not-free-but-more-than-worth-the-price museum in D.C. is the Newseum, which provides a fascinating multi-media tour of the history of international news media, with a focus upon American news, of course. Their collection of artifacts and memorabilia is immense and includes a huge gnarled section from the World Trade Center as well as several segments of the Berlin Wall and one of its towers. Wow!

Drawer after drawer of historic newspapers at the Newseum!

Previously, I had been apologetic about the fact that much of my recent writing has not been included in this weblog due to use restrictions demanded by the periodicals publishing my articles. However, my most recent article has been published on a weblog that any of you can view! It is the blog for the upcoming International German Genealogy Conference taking place in Sacramento, CA this coming June.

This latest article is part of a series of profiles I have been writing about people of German descent who have been important to the history of California. The first article in the series, about Adolph Sutro, was published in a recent edition of the quarterly Der Blumenbaum.

The second article in the series regards the not-so-famous son of the famous John Sutter. Although I do not mention this in the article, my dear hubby Marty is a direct descendant of John Sutter, and he is also descended from the subject of my article, August Sutter. Here's a quick tree to illustrate the relationship:

John Augustus Sutter -- Anna Dubeld

 |

John Augustus "August" Sutter, Jr -- Maria del Carmen Rivas

|

Victor Alphonse Link -- Anna Elisa Sutter 

|

Frank Sutter Link -- Aida Wanda Verdi

|

John Martin Brenneis -- Aida Anna Link

|

Martin "Marty" Brenneis

Apart from my family history interest in August Sutter, he has historical significance that I believe is undeservedly ignored, as he is overshadowed by his notorious father. You can find the article here: August Sutter Article.

Lastly, while on my two-month research trek last September and October, I took some video of historic cemeteries in southern Ohio. The cemeteries featured are Ash Ridge, Winchester, Straight Creek Baptist, and Pleasant Hill. Those videos, and others, are available on My YouTube Channel.

Until next time, fair readers!
Annie

"There are three kinds of people who run toward disaster, not away: cops, firemen and reporters." -- Rod Dreher, quoted on a wall in the Newseum's 9/11 exhibit (and one of my favorite modern authors -- see his excellent books "How Dante Can Save Your Life" and "The Benedict Option"!)

Recovering From A Research Trip and Home Construction...Yikes!

Hello again, Dear Readers!

In the coming weeks, I'll be posting updates from my activities while on a research trip during September and October. I returned home to a household packed in boxes, in preparation for contractors to come in and replace all of our flooring. At this time, I'm unpacking the last of the boxes and getting started in earnest on research-trip de-mobilization, organizing and otherwise dealing with all of the excellent materials and experiences collected on the trip. Lots of writing to do! Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks!

Here is the first of the videos I took at historic cemeteries while on the trip: Pleasant Hill Cemetery video.

May you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year's season!!

Annie

When Someone Not Related To You Writes About Your Family...

...it can be a wonderful boost for your research!

Dear Friends,

Apologies for not blogging for a while. I have been writing articles for publication elsewhere (i.e., genealogical journals), which has taken up a good deal of time (when the articles come out, I'll let you know where to find them!). In addition, I'm preparing to go on a research trip in the fall, so there's lots of advance research and planning going on.

However, I had to tell you about a recent exciting discovery--someone not related to my family has written a detailed article about one of my 4th great-grandfathers and some of his descendants, including my great-grandmother! Only a few years ago, Gale Ion Harris, a Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists, wrote an article entitled "Henry Jacob Seagondollar of Bavaria and Brown County, Ohio: Nineteenth-Century German Immigrants to the Midwest," and it was published in two parts in The American Genealogist! I was able to peruse the two parts of the article at the California Genealogical Society Library in Oakland (one of my favorite geni libraries!). Below is a sub-optimal phone-camera shot of the cover. 

Turns out the author is a retired Physics professor who has particular respect for the work of one of my cousins, Lewis Worth Seagondollar (1920-2013), a noted nuclear physicist and lecturer who had worked on the famous Manhattan Project. Cousin Worth was a great-grandson of my 4th great-uncle, Michael Seagondollar. I never had the honor of meeting Worth, as he passed away before I was aware of his existence, but I'm sure glad Dr. Harris was acquainted with Dr. Seagondollar and was for some reason motivated to study our immigrant ancestor!

A good deal of the information Dr. Harris shares in the article is familiar to me, and it's good to see that such a respected genealogist agrees with much of what I have found already. Of particular interest to me at this point are Dr. Harris's beautifully detailed source references--many of which I had not yet located or did not realize existed! In the coming months, I'll be combing through Dr. Harris's Seagondollar study in detail, and I'm immensely excited at the prospect of doing so!

My 4th great-grandfather, Heinrich Jacob Siegenthaler, came to America from Bavaria in 1840 with his wife Maria and sons Jacob and Michael, and within a couple of years they settled in Brown County, in southern Ohio near metropolitan Cincinnati. In the U.S., Heinrich was called Henry, and the family surname went through a few variations. In the end, Henry's son Jacob settled on the spelling "Segondollar," and Michael spelled the name "Seagondollar." Thus, it is easy for family members to tell whether we are direct descendants of Jacob or Michael by the way the last name is spelled. 

The Segondollar farm was in Jackson Township, Brown County.

Henry had willed his Ohio farm to both sons for their livelihoods, but Michael opted to venture out to his own farm in Kansas. In recent generations of the family, there seems to have been little or no contact between the Ohio Segondollar branch and the Kansas Seagondollar group. 

A few months ago on this web log, I wrote a post entitled Mom's Home Town and C-SPAN for Genealogy, in which I introduced you to my maternal grandfather, Clarence Everett Pryne, a.k.a. "C.P.," and his mother Lorena May Segondollar (1890-1968). Great-grandma Lorena was the daughter of Sherman Segondollar, the son of Jacob Segondollar, the brother who kept the Ohio farm. 

My 2nd-great-grandfather's tombstone, Winchester Cemetery, Ohio.

My mother remembered visiting the Ohio farm as a little girl, when it was being run by my great-grandmother Lorena's half-brother Jacob Madison Segondollar (1897-1970), but "Uncle Jake" had only one daughter and no sons to take over the enterprise, and I'm curious to learn what has become of the Segondollar farmland. You know I'll attempt to find out!

Annie

"Peace and love!" -- Sir Richard Starkey (Happy birthday, Ringo Starr!)

RootsTech2018 - My Review!

Any of you who have attended RootsTech know what a gigantic event it is. At RootsTech 2018, according to reports from the organizers, there were over 15,000 descendants in attendance at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, from February 28th to March 3rd. Although the Salt Palace is sizeable, at times I ended up drowning in a sea of barely-mobile humanity. With that many bodies about, it was surprising to find out that RootsTech did not take up the entire Salt Palace. A few of us sought refuge from the masses in the western section of the venue, where there were no events taking place.

For me, the best part of RootsTech was the class sessions. There were four days of them, on an impressive variety of topics for both beginning and more experienced genealogists. My only frustration with the sessions was the festival seating (first come, first seated). Some classes filled up a half hour or more before they were scheduled to begin. After being squeezed out of a couple of classes I was hoping to attend, I began leaving an occasional session way before it was over so I could get a seat in a class in the next time slot with a topic that was more interesting to me. As a former teacher, I hated to do that, but I was forced into being rudely competitive. If you go to RootsTech and are really interested in a particular class, you should arrive 45 minutes early, especially if you think it will be a popular session. Fortunately, my second-choice classes were pretty good.

Another advantage of arriving early for a session was that you had time to chat with other early birds who were sitting nearby. Without exception, it was a joy to chat with other attendees while we waited for a class to start. We could relax and enjoy the conversation, rather than simply exchange expressions of mutual exasperation as we dealt with crushing crowds, long lines, and ice-cold water at the bathroom sinks.

One other great thing about the classes was the availability of detailed syllabi for all the sessions, even the ones we did not not personally attend, which we were able to download as PDFs. This mitigated the occasional seating issue. 

There were general sessions with guest speakers. I attended only the first of these events, which included enlightening presentations on the technical progress that has been made in the genealogy world, some current challenges, and future advances to which we may look forward. Two terrific keynote speakers were scheduled for succeeding days -- Scott Hamilton and Henry Louis Gates. However, I opted out of seeing them live, because the sound level in the main auditorium was intolerably loud for me. The general sessions were going to be available to watch online, so I chose to save my hearing and enjoy the guest speakers at a later time, at a reasonable volume.

Thankfully, my desire to avoid noxious noise allowed for some time to peruse books and microfilms at the Family History Library, just a five-minute walk from the Salt Palace. The library was open until 9 p.m. every evening except Saturday, so I had time to gather several pages of notes from their copious collection.

There are a number of videos from the conference posted on the RootsTech website, including the general sessions and a number of the class sessions. From what we were told, the videos will be available until about the time of next year's conference, but videos from 2017 have remained on the site,too. I have not yet viewed all of the class videos (but I will!), although I have watched the speeches of Mr. Hamilton and Dr. Gates, both of which were very enjoyable. Hamilton's was an emotional talk about his life as an adoptee. Particularly poignant was the part where he spoke about his amazement over looking into the face of his first-born biological son -- the first biological family member he had ever known. Gates spoke excitedly about his personal adventures in family history, the evolution of his work in the field, and his plans for educating young people about the power of genealogy.

Seems I have just enough Scottish blood to keep me from being much of a spender. So, I was only mildly interested in the exhibit hall, through which I made just a couple of passes. It was basically a genealogy shopping mall, of course, but there were demonstrations, freebies, and opportunities to chat with consultants. The only stops I made were at the table for the Bureau of Land Management (they were giving out folders containing great information about land surveys) and some of the genealogy society tables. In particular, I wanted to visit the booth for JewishGen, where I obtained some excellent resource listings and also got a chance to chat with Lara Diamond of a blog that I follow, Lara's Jewnealogy, where she shares very useful information about Eastern Europe that is of interest to anyone with family from that part of the world, Jewish or not.

Having the RootsTech app on my phone was a great survival tool for nagivating the madness. I heard from one of the organizers that many attendees state they are uncomfortable with technology and will not use the app. Why would tech-averse people be attracted to a conference with the word "tech" in its name? Hopefully in order to begin learning 21st-century "tech"-niques!

One major "no-no" that I have learned from having attended many conventions is that it is very unwise to walk around the host city sporting conference name tags or wearing/carrying any other tell-tale swag that screams "out-of-towner." Salt Lake City is one of the safer urban venues, but it is good standard practice to try and blend in with the locals, who are less likely to be a target for crime than tourists. Almost all of the RootsTech-ers I saw out on the town were totally swagged-out. Sorry folks, but that screams "newbie" in the convention world. Keep your dignity and protect yourself from crime. When you go outside, go incognito!

It is no wonder to me that RootsTech is popular. The informative value of the class sessions far outweighs any aggravation from the crowds and noise. It offers tremendous opportunities for family historians to learn, network, and be inspired. 

Annie

"The only disability in life is a bad attitude." -- Scott Hamilton

Context in Historic Sites and Old Books--Frontier Life Along the Monongahela River

(You are also invited to visit my other blog, AnnieWritesAbout!)

Previously, fair reader, you were introduced my paternal grandfather, Clarence Pryne, known as C.P. This web log will have much to report about him and his ancestry because, thankfully, his Huguenot and Quaker roots in the early American colonies run very deeply, and there is a great deal of material from which to draw their histories (although never enough to satisfy genealogical curiosity, of course!).

In particular, our family is blessed to have portions of our heritage preserved not only in/on records and tombstones, but plaques, parks, and other historical sites. Of these, one of the most enlightening and exciting is Prickett's Fort State Park in West Virginia. For a run-down on my recent visit to Prickett's Fort, along with some information about its history, check out the post for December 22, 2016 in my other web log, AnnieWritesAbout, at this link.

The descendants of several of the pioneer families who lived in the area around Prickett's Fort eventually settled in southern Ohio, the natal home of Grandpa C.P., and their surnames make a strong showing on our family tree. Most notably, these include the Dunn family that had come to Virginia from Delaware, the Pindell and Mills families from Maryland, and the Springer and Prickett families from New Jersey.

The historian, as well as the genealogist, in me is always tickled when I find old, dusty, crackling books about the lives of people in a specific region about which I am researching. If I can score a free PDF copy of such a book, so much the better! The following is just one wonderful paragraph from a recent discovery, that has led me to an expanded understanding and respect for the challenges faced by our ancestors on the western frontier of Virginia:

"On landing in their new home the first duty was to erect a cabin for shelter, and then to select a suitable spot to cultivate for use when the stores carried with them were exhausted. The cabin was built of round logs, the interstices were chunked and daubed with common clay, or catan clay, which was a mixture of clay and grass, or straw. The chimney was on the outside and made of split logs at the bottom or fireplace, so called, and the top was of smaller split sticks, the whole being well daubed with clay mortar. The fireplace was lined with stone and mortar so as to prevent it catching fire. The floor, where there was any, was made of split logs hewn in shape to closely fit together. One window furnished the light, and one door hung on wooden hinges, with a latch and string, the mode of entrance. The latter drawn in was the lock to prevent entrance. The latchstring hanging out was always a token of welcome to the cabin. The furniture was for the most part rude and made impromptu; the chairs and tables were homemade. The grand old chest, brought from the east, was ample for clothing. The cupboard ware was pewter, and the bed and bedding were brought with them. There was no bedstead save that made by the few tools on hand from split timber. Immigration generally took place in the spring of the year, so that the first crop to be raised was corn and flax, the former to provide food for man and beast and the latter for clothing. The cabin was always located near a spring from which could be obtained water for the household and stock. The early settlers differed very much in the choice of location, some preferring the high and others the low lands. Along the creeks sites for sawmills were the choice of those who had a genius for water machinery, although the original mills were the wind mill and the tramp mill." (Van Voorhis A.M., M.D., John S. Old and New Monongahela. Pittsburgh, PA: Nicholson, Printer and Binder, 1898, pp 7-8.)

Annie

"Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man." -- Benjamin Franklin