StoriesFromthePast.com

Category: Wykoff

Updates and Ready for the New Year
Most of my followers read my blog for just one reason: to find information regarding their own family history. This post is simply to update you on my situation and when you can expect to hear more about the family history interests that brought you to me in the first place.

Since my post regarding Grave’s disease a couple of years ago, I have undergone radiation therapy to shut down my thyroid. Living without a thyroid requires daily synthetic replacement. In the past couple of months I have suffered from hypothyroid symptoms that severely affect my general mental alertness. It is difficult to focus, stay awake, and remain pain and symptom free if I sit at the computer for more than just a few minutes. Hence my recent post regarding tennis elbow (just one symptom of the larger disorder). To make my long story short, I have been back to the doctor and am having my medication adjusted. In the meantime, my blog has suffered.

Please accept my sincere apologies. Many of the posts I had planned for the past few weeks just haven’t happened. I do expect my blog to return to normal function as my body responds accordingly. So here is what you can expect over the next few weeks and into the new year:
- An introduction to my new friend from Austria, Ruth Contreras. She was just as anxious to find me as I have been anxious to find family members in Austria. We are both very grateful to have found each other. Ruth’s project, a recovery of pre-holocaust Jewish families from the Bucklige Welt region in Austria is a very exciting development.
  Bucklige Welt, “Land of 1,000 Hills,” Austria https://www.immobilienscout24.at
- Another Cousin Connection to Kwiatkowski brothers living in Hawaii, along with their holiday traditions.
- My very first ancestor landing page featuring my great-great grandfather, Rudolf Abeles from Austria. My grandmother was very close to him, and even lived with him in Pitten during his later years where she attended primary school and helped him with daily tasks. We believe he lived to be 99 years old!
- An exploration of Sephardic Jews in Europe, and how one particular Sephardic family ended up in Austtria. (My mother always said she would take a hard look into the mirror looking for evidence of her Spanish heritage).
- My second ancestor landing page featuring Aucke Wykoff. He was a Colonel in the American Revolution, and was credited with saving the life of a fellow POW in the infamous New York Sugar House Prison. The man he saved was more than just a friend, he was a member of the family.
- An exploration of life in the Sugar House prison and how Aucke Wykoff was related to Toby Polhemus.
- In the next year, I’ll be updating and revisiting the life of Mary Davis Skeen, the woman who started my journey to learn more about Plain
  Just one example of Kentucky’s historical stone fences.
  
  City Utah’s Pioneer History, and the inspiration for this website.
- A deeper look into the people and events that make up this place that is my new home. I’ll begin with a close look at the historical “Slave Fences” of Kentucky and the efforts to preserve them. I see evidence of this Irish stonecraft everywhere around here.
In the meantime, I have discovered some exciting information about Family History in Kentucky. I was able to visit the public library for the first time yesterday, and found some amazing help for family historians. There is tons of information available through their resources, and I want to showcase their upcoming Tuesday afternoon online events from 3-4 pm Eastern Standard Time:
- Dec. 5: 3G2 Glitter, Glue, and Genealogy, TOO!
- Dec. 12: Explain it Like I’m five: What is a “Christmas Pickle”?
- Dec. 19: Christmas on Madison Tour
- Dec. 26: TIL Genealogy (Using Northern Kentucky’s church index database)
P.S. You don’t need to have a library card or even live in Kentucky for these online events. To view online, tune into @KentonLibrary on Periscope (available on your smartphone or tablet), or at periscope.tv/kentonlibrary. Dec. 5 and 12 events look like they’d be interesting for people everywhere, especially those with German and/or Christian backgrounds.
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December 2, 2017
Cousin Connection #4: Evidence from the Grave
I had already published my first Cousin Connection when I met Diedre MacLean, I just didn’t know it yet. Diedre contacted me using Stories From the Past’s Tell Your Story form after she discovered several name matches from the same cemetery where Kathy, wife of my cousin Chuck, had discovered a connection to me. It was Diedre’s WordPress message that inspired me to create my Cousin Connection. If I could connect with Diedre through an online cemetery photo, I figured the possibilities were endless. There may be an end somewhere, but as long as there are ancestors yet to be found, I can keep telling stories for many years to come.

Diedre’s information came from word of mouth. Her grandmother shared her family’s history with her, as I am sure it was passed along from generation to generation. When Diedre shared the information with me, I could see that we did indeed have a solid match. I just needed to verify the information that matched our shared ancestor, so I started with Elenor Haskins, Diedre’s g-g-g-grandmother whom Diedre believed to be the daughter of our shared ancestors William Auckey Wyckoff and his wife Eleanor Van Mater. The first thing I found was her tombstone.

As I probed into FamilySearch data, and did a records search, I found discrepancies from the tombstone of Elenor [Wykoff] Haskins, and the Eleanor Wykoff listed as daughter to our shared ancestor. The first and last names matched, but the dates did not match the tombstone. I assumed the dates on the tombstone were correct. (They are written in stone.) I knew we had the right ancestor. After all, it would have had to have been an elaborate hoax on Diedre’s part, and really, what’s in it for either of us? We are, after all, complete strangers. So what was missing?

https://new.findagrave.com/memorial/108388262/Elenor-Haskins

Insription: ELENOR, Wife of Charles Haskins, died Jan. 11, 1873 aged 40 yrs

After further communication with Diedre, I was convinced that I did indeed have the right tombstone, but I was not convinced that I had found the right ancestor on FamilySearch. I began to rattle some bones. I surmised that Diedre was missing a generation in her family tree, so I began digging with the oldest male among William and Eleanor Wykoff’s thirteen children. He had a daughter named Elenor. Her husband’s name did not match. The next child was the daughter named Eleanor, so I skipped her. The third child and second son also had a daughter named Eleanor. but her husband, children, and death date did not match either. I was beginning to worry that I would have to search all thirteen of the Wykoff children before I found the right Eleanor. The third son was my g-g-g-grandfather Cyrenius. He didn’t have any Eleanors. Thank goodness. I found Diedre’s Eleanor with the fourth son Charles. I was right. Charles was the missing link and his wife’s name was

-wait for it-

-wait for it-

Eleanor! Obviously his wife was not the Eleanor Haskins I was looking for, but their daughter was.

So. William married Eleanor. They had a daughter named Eleanor. Their sons could not be named Eleanor so they named their daughters Eleanor. Charles, one of those sons, had a wife named Eleanor and they also named their daughter Eleanor. She married a Charles too, but they named their daughter Etta, who named her daughter Eleanor, and that Eleanor named her daughter Etta. That Etta was Diedre’s Grandmother. Confused? That’s why I make charts.

The exciting part in all of this for me, is not the first name of Charles Wykoff’s wife, but her maiden name which is the same as my grandmother’s. Diedre and I may have more in common than we thought.

In the end, Diedre and I are fifth cousins once removed. I am still a bit confused about the fact that Elenor Wykoff Haskins married a man named Charles and that her mother and father just happened to be named Eleanor and Charles as well. It’s not impossible that four individuals just happened to share given names with previously unrelated people, but I could not find corroborating evidence in the form of primary sources. The only thing proving FamilySearch’s information to be correct is that tombstone.

I solved one mystery, but that leads to other mysteries. Welcome to genealogy.

And welcome to my family, Diedre!
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October 19, 2017
Are You My Cousin?
Stories From the Past is proud to present The Cousin Connection Project.

I grew up without cousins. Well, I did have cousins. I knew I had cousins. I had even met three of them. But I didn’t know them well, and I didn’t even live in the same state as any of them. I was well into my 40s by the time I started getting to know the rest of my cousins, and I still haven’t met most of them in person.

I met my midwestern cousins on my mother’s side when I moved to Chicago for graduate school. As I sat at Thanksgiving dinner with all those first cousins trying to figure out how my children were related to them and how our children were related to each other, my cousin Allen patiently explained the differences between first, second, third cousins, etc., and the numbers of removal. It was a bit confusing, but I retained enough of the information that I felt comfortable in exploring cousin relationships to others.

Thanks to Facebook, I have been able to connect with even more cousins I have never met in person. With their cooperation, I am getting to know them better one blog post at a time. When my newly discovered cousin Bernie posted a family recipe on Facebook, I decided the recipe would make a great blog post. I felt that I should also identify just how we were related, so with Bernie’s cooperation, and using Allen’s “formula” I created a chart showing my newly discovered relationship. Bernie was great, and the post was so personally rewarding that I offered to do it for all of my cousins on Facebook.

Between Bernie’s post and my next cousin post, I was contacted by a complete stranger named Diedre in Michigan. Diedre gave me some information indicating that we have common ancestors from early colonial America and the Netherlands (AKA Holland at the time). Much of Diedre’s information pointed to a probable family connection by removals with an old family friend in Utah. I could see that I could easily make cousin connections throughout the United States on a regular basis by connecting through common ancestors. I’ll go more into detail about those common ancestors in another cousin connection post, but suffice it to say I can see that I have plenty to keep busy.

Thanks to my U.S. immigrant ancestors, and the cousins I’ve already connected with, I can connect with my past in a completely new and exciting way. Next week I’m connecting with another New York cousin, our family genealogy expert, John Woodgie. After that, Diedre, and I still have plenty of ideas to keep me going well into the new year. This is very rewarding for me, so I am creating a database for these cousin connections, and I am calling it The Cousin Connection Project.

The Cousin Connection Project uses a surname and location database of most ancestors I have been able to identify. The database is organized alphabetically by surname, and should be pretty easy to identify links to common ancestors. If you come across a name, location, and date range that matches names, locations, and date ranges in your own family tree, you can contact me for a free consultation and a possible cousin connection post showing your relationship to me.

I am also including separate databases for Mary Davis Skeen and any other family lines for other historical biographies I decide to tackle in the future. The separate databases will make it easier to identify your own personal relation to other bygone figures. I have already checked Mary Davis and her husband William Skeen (who was from Pennsylvania), against my own family tree, and I have no reason at all to believe that there is a connection to myself (so far).

As the connections grow, I plan to include links to stories, recipes, and family traditions. This is exciting for me, a person who grew up without knowing most of my extended family, including three of my grandparents and most of my first cousins. Where before I felt that I had almost no extended family, suddenly the world is becoming my family. I know that we have often been told that the family of humankind is all related. Some of those estimates claim that we are related by as little as sixth cousins. Other, more scientific endeavors claim that everyone on the earth is related by at least fiftieth cousins. I don’t know how much truth there is to that claim, but I am pretty sure that I am related to enough amateur genealogists to keep my Cousin Connection Project alive for as long as I want to pursue it. Here’s to getting to know you!
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September 20, 2017
I went to the cemetery looking for my family. I think I found them.
A few days ago I decided to change my screensaver on my PC. I thought I’d look up places where my ancestors lived and fill my screensaver scroll with interesting photos of those places to provide inspiration for my family search and for blog posts. You wouldn’t believe the stories I uncovered! Right here, in the good ol’ U S of A!

But first, a few shots from my past in the old world:

Wimpassing Im Schwarzatalle, Lower Austria , where my maternal grandmother was born. Yes, those are the Alps in the far background.(http://www.bergfex.at/sommer/wimpassing-im-schwarzatale/)

Hanstein Castle, near Hanover Germany where my maternal grandfather was born. (http://posture.doonks.com/hanover.html)

The only Jewish synagogue in the old Jewish sector of Pressburg, Austria, now Bratislava, Slovakia. Did my maternal great-great-grandfather, Rabbi Rudolf Abeles preside over a congregation here?(http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava-686020/Things_To_Do-Bratislava-Jewish_Life-BR-1.html)

Bydgoszcz, Poland where my great-grandparents immigrated from. (http://allworldtowns.com/cities/bydgoszcz.html)

One of the few remaining buildings in a tiny place called Kwiatkow in Poland. If I go back far enough, will I find that my surname originated here?

The photographs of the old world are amazing, but I do have ancestors from the colonial days in America too. My paternal grandmother was born in Potter County, Pennsylvania, and my grandfather, son of Polish immigrants, was born in Cattaraugus County, New York. The two counties share state borders, and from what I’ve heard, Grandma must have crossed the state line where she met my grandfather. I’ve actually driven through Cattaraugus County, and I even stopped in the City where my father and grandfather were born (probably the same city where my grandparents met, considering it is rural New York, and it really is more of a small town), so I really was more interested in seeing images from the Pennsylvania side. (more…)
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June 12, 2015
Know Your Groups
If you’re lucky, your family has never immigrated. It happens. But since the discovery of the Americas, people have been migrating with increasing frequency. No matter where you live, if you are anything other than indigenous, you can be sure you will find immigrants in your past. People marry outside their traditional cultural and social sets all the time, bringing more groups into the mixture.

While this is usually a good thing, it often makes it difficult to do genealogy. But as my family has found, focusing on one family group at a time helps to organize and focus on the task at hand.

Take a look at my family: (more…)
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January 16, 2015
Death-It runs in the family
A curious thing about my ancestors–they’re all dead. It’s the one thing they have in common. When they die, they get buried. At least back in the day, that’s what they did. Today, cremation is a definite possibility, and it’s getting more common. Especially in Europe where they are running out of room for all of the bodies. But where did the bodies of our Euro-American ancestors go? I have some guesses, and going by family names, religions, places of settlement, and places of origin, I’d bet some good money that I’ve got late relatives buried in each one of the cemeteries I found.

Of course, I promised that I’d do some looking into the Polhemus family cemetery where my 5th great-grandfather was buried. You would think that would be an easy thing considering that the cemetery is smack in the middle of American Revolutionary history. Not so. None of the links to Colts Neck New Jersey Cemeteries seem to be working correctly. However, I was able to get some interesting photos with definite possibilities.

I did some sleuth work, based on things I know about the Wyckoff family. First, I know that they are Dutch; we have traced their records back to the Netherlands. Second, I know that they originally settled in the area of Monmouth County in New Jersey. Third, I have some evidence from Find-a-Grave that indicates that Aukey Wyckoff was buried in the Polhemus family cemetery in Colt’s Neck, New Jersey. And, of course, I know their last name would have been Wikoff, Wykoff, or Wyckoff. Knowing these things, I have come up with the following photos:

The Polhemus family cemetery, where Auke Wykoff is said to be buried, is located in the Colts Neck Reformed Church Cemetery. This makes sense, since most Dutch immigrants belonged to the Dutch Reformend Church. This is the only photo I could find of the “church” or cemetery.

The Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church in Monmouth county. I would not be surprised at all to find ancestors buried here, even if they are not Wyckoffs.

This is actually a screenshot of a street-view looking at the Wyckoff Reformed Church Cemetery in New Jersey.

The Wyckoff Reformed Church

There are so many possibilities in New Jersey. I would love to take a trip there sometime and do some cemetery hopping. It would be a lot of fun to see how many of my Dutch ancestors I can find while I am there.
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October 27, 2014
Colonel Wyckoff’s Lost Tombstone
My mom is a first generation American. This means that she and her siblings are the first in the family to be born in the United States. My Grandfather on my dad’s side is also first generation American. Mom is half German and half Austro-Hungarian Jew, and Grandpa on Dad’s side is 100% Polish. Grandpa on Dad’s side married an American. This is where the lost tombstone comes in.

Dad says he’s half Polish and half mutt. On the mutt side of my family (the American side), I have a 5th great-grandfather who was a colonel in the American Revolution, so I qualify as a Daughter of the American Revolution (DAR); even though I am part mutt. (more…)
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October 23, 2014