Cousins Uncovered

Finding Stine and her family in Elk Horn was a nice surprise!  Finding her and her husband’s obits in the archived newspaper clippings in the Genealogy Center was like finding hidden treasure!  The obits gave me the names of their children, and from there I found their children’s obits listing their children, Stine’s grandchildren.  What a find!

Stine and Christen had 3 boys:  Jens, William and Andrew.  Jens and Andrew eventually married and had children of their own.  William remained unmarried and is buried next to his parents in the Exira cemetery. Finding the names of Stine’s and Christen’s grandchildren was such a wonderful find!  I excitedly, and a little anxiously, wrote letters to 2 of the granddaughters whose names I found still listed in the Exira directory.  I thought of calling, but felt that writing was the least intrusive way of introducing myself.  And, in my letter, I included my telephone number and email address.  If they didn’t want to have any correspondence, I would not hear from them.  But I had my fingers crossed that I would hear from at least one of them.

A week went by and I heard nothing.  Then another week.  Then another week.  I was giving up hope, but trying to stay positive.  It was possible that, being farmers, they were just too busy to respond right away.   Another week went by, and then it happened.  I noticed I had a voicemail from a number I didn’t recognize!  Could this be it?  I hoped so!  So, with my fingers crossed, I listened to the voicemail and, yes, it was one of Stine’s granddaughters contacting me!

Ardell was one of Andrew’s daughters.  Her sister, Colleen, was the other granddaughter I sent a letter to.  I called Ardell back immediately and we talked for some time.  She, of course, was curious how I found her.  (I love telling people the “how”.  It seems so simple to me, but they always seem so amazed!)  :o)  Once we got past the initial questions, I told her what I knew about her grandparents, more specifically, her grandmother.  Throughout the conversation, I referred to her as Stine.  At a later point, Ardell asked me where I got the name “Stine”.  I told her that all of us had always heard that Great-Grandpa Jens had a sister named Stine who also lived in America.  She said she had never heard her grandmother referred to by that name, which made it an even more special name to me…obviously, it was Great-Grandpa’s nickname for his baby sister. 

Ardell also told me that her mother and my grandmother, Leona, kept in constant contact with one another through letters.  Who knew???  I certainly wasn’t aware that Grandma was still in contact with her cousins in Elk Horn!  Ardell said that, though the letters may have been sent with some time lapsing between, all of a sudden, the letters from Grandma stopped.  She said that her mother always wanted to know why she wasn’t hearing from Leona anymore.  Working out about the timeframe that Grandma quit writing put it about the time that we both thought…that Grandma Leona had passed away.  And, the rest of us not knowing that she was keeping in contact with her cousins, we would not have known to contact the Elk Horn cousins to pass along the sad news. 

The obvious next step was to get my parents to Elk Horn to reunite my dad with his cousins.

To be continued…

A Sister and a Destination

When I first began researching my grandmother's family tree, I had no idea where or how many cousins I would find.  I also had no idea that I would find more here in America!  I told my parents that I was going to start working on the family tree, and they told me that Great-Grandpa Jens had a sister who immigrated to America also.  All they knew was that her name was Stine.  No one knew when she came over, but it was the consensus that she settled somewhere around Elk Horn, IA as Jens and Johanne did.

So, the first thing I knew I needed to do was find out what siblings Jens had.  As I said in a previous post, I found he had 3 sisters: Karen Elline, Inger Marie Petrea and Ane Christine.  Of the 3, the most likely to be known as Stine would have been the youngest.  So, I began looking for her in the Emigration Archives at http://emiarch.dk.  Every once in a while, the search is easy and I find what I'm looking for almost immediately, but MOST of the time, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.  Spelling of names didn't seem to be something to be taken seriously.  :o)

I never did find her emigration registration information, but I did know that she would have arrived at Ellis Island, which became the US Port of Immigration on Jan. 1, 1892.  Even if she had sailed when she was only 16, she still would have been processed through that port rather than Castle Garden. 

It didn't take much time at all to find that she had departed Copenhagen on the Oscar II on November 19, 1902 and arrived at Ellis Island on Dec. 2, 1902.  That raised questions for me immediately!  First, what a bitterly cold and unpleasant time of year to be travelling via ship across the Atlantic to a foreign country that she was going to call home!  Can you just imagine how long that journey would have seemed?  Wow!  Second, the family lived in Pandrup, wayyyyyyy up north in Jutland.  What was involved in getting this young woman to Copenhagen?  I would love to know that story, but I'm afraid it's been lost forever.  The only way to answer would be speculate and make assumptions, which could prove to be logically sound but there is no way of knowing if they're accurate.  So, I'm just left wondering. 

The most interesting thing about Stine's entry on the passenger list is who she was going to in the USA.  It states "intended husband".  Wow!  Just imagine the questions that started swirling around my head then!  I wanted to know all there was to know about this "Chr. Jensen" in Marne, IA!  :o)

I did a little bit of research and discovered that he was much older than her, being in his 30s and she being only 19.  Then I wondered, was he widowed?  If he was her "intended husband", the families must have known one another in Denmark, right?  Or did someone who knew the family know him here in the States and arrange a marriage on behalf of the family?  So many questions!  Most of which, we will not know the answers.

So, I had successfully discovered my great-grandfather's sister, as well as where she lived and when she came to the US.  It made me happy to know that the family obviously kept in contact if 14 years could pass before her brother and his family joined her in Elk Horn!  :o)

Now that I knew where she was and who she married, my summer became a series of regular trips to Elk Horn, IA to the Genealogy Center, where access to old newspapers and local databases proved to connect me to Stine's descendants....who mostly all still live in the area!

Finding Christen and Stine's obituaries gave me the names of their children and grandchildren...along with locations.  The next thing to do was check the phone directory for addresses, write some letters, and keep my fingers crossed.

Found it!  Stine's emigration registration...

To be continued...