A Small Burst of Research! [Wanker Sisters/Jennie Berglin]

My friend talked me into joining Mastodon last week. So I did because why not. I've actually been having a lot of fun on it... it's like a much chiller Twitter full of really talented, artistic people. I don't really have any artistic ability... but I do have genealogy! I thought maybe somebody else on the site might find it vaguely interesting - and it's been a slow week at work - so I "livetweeted" (livetooted, per Mastodon vernacular) some genealogy research as I was doing it.

Not sure how many people actually DID find it interesting, but... I've gotten some things accomplished!

Last Tuesday I found myself returning to the Wanker sisters. I've tried contacting a few descendants of Mary Ann to no avail... and damn it I really want to send this photo home because I love it so much.

Wanker Sisters: Mary, Emma, Lesta, Ella, Nellie Pearl

After lots of scrounging around newspapers I finally found the name of Ella's (the 2nd youngest sister) son. Using my work's Spokeo account I found an address for him - and who knows if it's actually correct - or if he's still alive since he'll be turning 70 next month. But I sent off a notecard to the address I found. FINGERS CROSSED.

Friday I researched a lady I hadn't done ANY research on. She was part of my big Cokato, Minnesota haul back in April. 

Jennie L Berglin, born November 16th, 1882 in Cokato, Minnesota to Swedish immigrant farmers Nels & Mary Berglin (nee Johnson). She married John Nelson and they had 3 children. She died April 9th, 1977.

No interesting stories/newspaper clippings about her that I could find, but the backs of the photos mention that she worked for whoever owned these photos originally as a cook... and somebody named Margaret visited her in an elder care home back in 1970. None of the census records show her having a job. Her husband John was a butcher, so maybe she worked in the butcher shop with him? I honestly don't know.

I did manage to trace her line down to some living grandchildren and great grandchildren so hopefully I'll be able to send the photos off before Thanksgiving. :)

Organization! (+a mighty haul!)

I have accumulated a lot of photos. Last year I decided to upload them all to a Tumblr account (here) so I could research them even if I wasn't near the image files. Well, I went through the entire Tumblr account and added tags to organize things better for my sanity. If you're interested, you can see what photos I've started research on and which ones I haven't (haha, stop buying new things Toni). There's a tag for what I have available to return and for extra feel good, you can see everything I've reunited with family members (my fave tag). I also tagged them with surnames. Or names I think are the surnames.

With that done, I had a HUGE haul on Sunday. The lovely gentleman I returned all the Goettling/Gateman photos to was super sweet and sent me reimbursement. It was generous (more than what I spent on photos & shipping), so I went on a spree at Call It New, Call It Antique.

I'm really excited about the teaching certificate. It's from 1870 and is something a little different. I just hope I can find somebody who wants it. I have done a little research on it, and the woman never married. Anywho, you can see proper scans of all these things over on the Tumblr while I work on researching some of them!

Libbie Sherman

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Libbie E Sherman was born September 2, 1886 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The only child of Elliot H Sherman & Clara E Kelly. She married William Guy Waters on June 5, 1915. She died February 1970 in Grand Rapids.

With only a 20 minute throw together of Libbie Sherman's family tree, I have a feeling this one is going to sit in my binder for a while. :( No kids, no siblings, no 1st cousins.... but it's such a cute photo, I don't regret buying it. Not sure where that leaves me research-wise though. Maybe a 2nd or 3rd cousin would want Libbie's photo? 

Gatemans & Goettlings

I've previously made smaller posts about this batch of photos (Ernest Goettling & Susanna Gateman and Sophia Goettling)... and had a draft of a post sitting in my Blogger since January where I was going to post more.

But as fate would have it, Sophia's great grandson found me and reached out! So today the 11 photos I bought of the Gateman/Goettling families were sent off! I'm delighted to be able to send them off - not just because it clears 11 spaces in my overstuffed binder - but because I've had these photos for almost 2 years and was starting to hit that "maybe nobody wants these" point.

So yay! On to the next!

Re: David & Luvisa Shanks (nee Fisher)

One of my New Years Resolutions this year is to be better at updating this blog even if nothing particularly exciting research-wise is happening. Also to get more photos sent back to their families because my binder of photos doth overfloweth! In August, I converted my secondary Facebook account (that I had previously used for spammy game stuff) into a Facebook account for Wayward Objects. Because really, Facebook SHOULD - in theory - make connecting photos back to families easier.

IN THEORY.

I've been trying to get a hold of somebody - anybody - descended from David & Luvisa Shanks (previously posted about back in April 2015). I have lots of options, they had 9 children and I have uncovered a lot of great great great grandchildren. The problem comes when they aren't very active on Facebook... or they are and they don't see my private message... or (in one case) they are and they are just blatantly ignoring me for some bizarre reason. But I won't give up! Short term goal is to get David & Luvisa back to their family before the month is over!