Ahnentafel

I’m still intending to post here more often but was in Vancouver for work for a week. I’m back now, though, and intend to get back on track (eventually!). Before I left, I discovered some new databases posted on the Norwegian site, Digitalarkivet. This site contains thousands of digitized Norwegian records covering census data, births, marriages, confirmations, emigrations, tax lists, and more. I’ve visited this site in the past, but the “digitised parish records” feature was recently added, and this has provided a wealth of new primary records on our Norwegian ancestors. The records are sorted by county and then parish, so it is fairly easy to look through the images for Sogn og Fjordane County, Innvik Parish, and locate many of our Roberg/Aaland relatives. You can now find a number of these records for Anders Roberg, Svend Roberg, and others posted in my genealogy database.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not writing as many posts as I ought to! Since my goal here is to keep everyone up to speed on all my genealogy and family history discoveries, I plan to write more often about my research progress even if I haven’t received any earth-shattering revelations. So what am I up to now? My major addiction is my current “Census Project”–using the census images at www.ancestry.com to trace all our family branches from 1850 (the first year that every individual in a household was listed by name) to 1930 (the most recent census available). I am working my way very slowly through the Davises right now, many of them located in Doddridge County, West Virginia. My target family today was Anderson G. Davis and his wife Millie (or Mollie) Dotson. All the West Virginia research is made easier by the fact that one of the Ancestry.com databases contains information on West Virginia marriages prior to 1900–this really simplifies the process of tracing an individual from their childhood home to their own home and family after marriage. This particular branch of the Davis family also contains quite a few unusual names–among the siblings of Anderson Davis were Zacharias, Elvira, Donmanuel, Elijah, Elkana, Sylvanus, Penelope, and Vandelee. All the unusual names help with the tracking process–especially with a common surname like Davis. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever see the end of the Census Project–and then I realize I don’t really want to!

In the summer of 2005, Mom and I took a trip to Michigan. I had never been there before, and we wanted to check out the many lighthouses on the Great Lakes. One of our favorite stops was the Little Sable Light, situated on an isolated sandy beach near Mears. The lighthouse is made of reddish brick and stands 107 feet tall on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. As always, I was interested both in the light itself and in imagining what life for the lighthouse keepers was like, but had no reason to suspect I would one day find a personal connection.

Several years later, researching census records of our Wilson ancestors, I made an unexpected discovery. Hiram James Willson, born in Massena, New York, between 1836 and 1837, was the first cousin twice removed of Carl Ozro Wilson. Sometime between 1850 and 1867 Hiram moved from New York to Michigan, as did a number of Willson relatives. In the 1850 census Hiram can still be found in Louisville, New York, but in 1867 his daughter Gertrude was born in Michigan.

By 1900 Hiram had died, and Gertrude was not found in the census record of her widowed mother, Jennie (Vernon) Willson. Searching more widely, however, I was able to locate her; though Gertrude had married and therefore changed her last name, her birth year and birthdate were correct, as were the birthplaces of her parents. Once Gertrude had been identified, further details became evident. She had married Joseph Arthur Hunter (born March 1857) about 1887, and had given birth to Herbert H. in June 1888 and Pearl G. in July 1890.  Joseph’s occupation in the census record is shown as “lighthouse keeper,” with the family living in Golden Township, Oceana County. A quick Internet search determined that the lighthouse in Oceana County is in fact the Little Sable Light, and further research revealed a listing of the keepers of Little Sable, which includes not only Joseph Hunter but, for a few shorts weeks in 1910, “Mrs. H. G. [Gertrude Helen] Hunter.” 

All in all, it appears that the Hunters were involved with the Little Sable light from 1890-1922, when Joseph retired.  Joseph’s journals from 1916-1922 have been published as well, so (as soon as my copy arrives!) I may have an even fuller understanding of what life at Little Sable was like.