Help Me Blog, or Help My Blog

So I recently tried a poll here on SallySearches. It didn't work very well. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. This time I went with SurveyMonkey.

As we Chicagolanders say: vote early and often! You can choose multiple topics. Thank you for your input.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

© 2013 Sally Knudsen

Tombstone Tuesday - Scenes at Saratoga

Saratoga Cemetery is a small farming community cemetery with about 1,000 burials. It is nestled off the main county road going though Grundy County, Illinois. This was my first visit and I was drawn to the north side where the oldest stones were laid. Here are some photos of this cemetery:

Larissa Conklin  

unknown burial, perhaps children 

unknown veteran 

Sarah Ann Conklin Minkler 

 Elizabeth Wickwire

Gunder Gunderson

abandoned granary across the road

 driveway looking west

Photographed at Saratoga Cemetery, Route 47, north of Morris, Grundy County, Illinois

© 2013 Sally Knudsen

A Memorable Memorial Day [Reprinted]

[Reprinted from 2012]

Last year, my mother and I volunteered to help place flags at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery the Friday before Memorial Day. It was my second outing, and equally as moving as the first. Watching the literal swarm of flag-carrying volunteers move as a human wave across the grounds is breathtaking.

Thank you to all who have served.

© 2013 Sally Knudsen

Take My Poll!

I haven't done this before, so bear with me. I am at a bit of an impasse for my next blog posts. I have been researching for many years, and have plenty of information stockpiled, but organizing and presenting it often make me pause. A lot.

Let me know what YOU might want to read about next.

Vote early and often, as we Chicagolanders like to say!
  Thank you, as always, for reading!

Sally

PS: I posted a different version and didn't think it worked, but it really did, but I already deleted it, so I posted this one. Whew!

Tombstone Tuesday - Antis Z

This is one of the more interesting names I have come across in my cemetery wanderings. His full name is Antis Z. Walley. He was the son of Zachariah and Eunice Walley, and was only 17 when he died in 1875.

Many of the earliest settlers in this area came from Pennsylvania. There is still an Antis, Pennsylvania. Perhaps that's what he was named for.

I didn't dare attempt to move the broken stone, so photographed what I could. I rather like the composition and mystery to go with his name.

Find A Grave memorial

Photographed in Aux Sable Cemetery, Aux Sable Township, Grundy, Illinois

© 2013 Sally Knudsen

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day

Thankful for my past generations...

and thankful for my future generation...

© 2013 Sally Knudsen

Tombstone Tuesday - Revolutionary Daughter

This plaque is mounted to the gravestone of Mary Ann Hess Cryder. It reads:

MARY ANN HESS CRYDER

Daughter of a

Revolutionary War

Soldier

Placed by

Alida Bliss Chapter

D. A. R.

Mary Ann's father was Balzer Hess. The Cryder's were originally from the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area, and settled in rural Morris, Grundy, Illinois before 1840. They are some of the original settlers of Grundy County [see grandson Eugene's biography].

MARY ANN

Wife of

HENRY CRYDER

Died

Sep. 27, 1854

Aged 72 Yrs

Photographed in Aux Sable Cemetery, Aux Sable Township, Grundy, Illinois

© 2013 Sally Knudsen

Wedding Wednesday - A Cross-Country Mystery

Over the past few weeks, I've shared Danish resources and research hints from my own experiences. They really have grand records, those Danes! [Post #8]

I will leave you with a peek at a marriage record that is a mystery as well. I have been able to document a considerable amount of information on my husband's ancestral family through his great-grandfather, Knud Rasmus Knudsen of Aarhus. I won't bore you with all the research details, but suffice it to say that I found an equal lineage for his great-grandmother and Knud's wife, Karen Kristine Nielsen. Karen was born in a small village called Spjellerup, nowhere near Aarhus.

I know that Knud and Karen came to Chicago in 1891, but still had no marriage record in Chicago and none in Aarhus. Once I found Karen's family records in Spjellerup, I decided an "exhaustive search" in that village was necessary. I searched all the marriage book pages from about 1888-1891. As I was about to bail on the effort, on the second to last record of the very last page, here:

Arkivalieronline.dk: Praesto, Fakse, Spjellerup 1844-1891, p 85-86

I found this:

Marriage books are divided in two columns, with the groom on the left and the bride on the right. This record reads:

Ungkarl (bachelor) Knud Rasmus Knudsen, 25 aars (years), Aarhus 

Pige (girl) Karen Kristine Nielsen, 21 aars, Lille Spjellerup

Not much detail, but this is definitely the couple. The marriage date was 8 January 1891. But check out this map of Denmark. Aarhus is circled in red, with Tulstrup at the arrow. Karen's home is circled in blue.

Google map of Denmark

What jumps out at me is HUH? Like many citizens in the 1800's, no matter what country, people stayed pretty close to home. Sure, some ventured to the big cities, but for the most part, families stayed put. So how? when? and mostly why did Knud end up on the island of Zealand, getting married in a little village on the other side of the country?

Genealogy never ends, does it?
______________________________

Thank you for following along on my Danish research adventure. I hope you learned something, and I wish you all Danish ancestors to find, because, boy do they have great records!

Here is a link to my family tree and the Knudsen and Nielsen research.

© 2013 Sally Knudsen