Sweet Sixteen Redux

Back on August 9, 2009, Randy Seaver presented another Saturday Night Genealogical Fun (SNGF) challenge for readers to document their sixteen great-great-grandparents.  I responded to the call with Sweet Sixteen: My Great-Great Grandparents.  But, my tree was a little bare in some spots.  I did not know at least 4 names and was “iffy” on [...]

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Online Indexes and Flexible Spellings

Recently I tried searching the collection of German vital records at the FamilySearch Record Search site.  There are three indexes for Germany: Germany Births and Baptisms, 1588 – 1898 Germany Deaths and Burials, 1582 – 1958 Germany Marriages, 1558 – 1929 The information in these indexes was extracted from original sources and entered into a [...]

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Surname Saturday: FISCHER

Surname – FISCHER Meaning/Origin – The surname FISCHER really does mean “fisher” as in “fisherman.”  According to the Dictionary of German Names, Second Edition by Hans Bahlow, the frequency of the name in Germany “is evidence of the former importance of this ancient occupation.”   I find it ironic that my particular Fischer’s were actually [...]

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Devoted to the Land: My Farming Ancestors

The topic for this edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is The Good Earth, and we are invited to tell about our ancestors’ ties to the land.  When I first saw the topic, I doubted I’d have much to say.  My immediate ancestors – and myself – are from a very large city, so there [...]

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Celebrating Occupations on Labor Day

Since today is “Labor Day” in the United States, I wanted to take a look at my ancestors’ occupations.  Some of the jobs are still performed in much the same way today as they were in my ancestors’ times.  My grandfather James Pointkouski (1910-1980) was born in the right century to be a truck driver, [...]

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