Random Notes

Wordless Wednesday - 05 June 2013

2013-06-05T19:47:00.001-04:00

The Crafty Gene

2013-05-19T11:29:00.002-04:00

That crafty thing? Yeah, I don't really have it. I don't really make things. I don't sew, I don't scrapbook, I don't decorate cakes, I don't weave baskets, I don't crochet or knit or quilt...the list goes on.

My Mom and sister on the other hand...they have it in spades.

So I was cleaning out boxes of stuff I had in my parent's attic...

(Yes, it's true, I STILL have stuff in their attic - where else do you store the print-out of every iteration of a term paper you wrote in 1990? I finally recycled the earlier drafts, it's probably safe to discard them at this point right? :-D )

...and I found a few handfuls of Barbie clothes and accessories. These were from back in the old days when they would sell tiny little perfume bottles that can easily be snorted up the nose of a 3 year old and frankly, if you did that, it was your fault, not the toy's.

The jewel in the midst of all that perfectly preserved 1970s plastic though was this:

Hand-made Barbie clothing that my mother slaved over, all perfectly preserved (well, I guess the wedding veil has seen better days).

Isn't she a great Mom to have made things like this? I imagine she had to use tiny little Barbie-size knitting and crochet needles; it must have been a tough task!

Anyway, as non-crafty as I am, I'm quite impressed!

Surname Saturday: Domelle

2013-05-05T08:33:00.000-04:00

Back in 2010 I wrote a blog posting on the DOMELLE surname. Since then I've actually made huge progress on what has been a brick wall family line for me for many many years!

Knowing that my Domelle's came from a village whose german name was Triebswetter (now in modern Romania), I was mucking around online late last year and found there were many CDs available that showed transcribed church records for towns in that area.

There were many ethnic Germans and French that moved south to farm empty land in what was then the Austro-Hungarian empire. So many towns in what is now Romania were actually nearly entirely filled with Germans or French.

Today there are local historians who have gone through the trouble of transcribing church records for these towns. And I found someone who had done Triebswetter and was selling the CD online. Now, whether you can trust the information or not was certainly something I considered, but I figured with something that had been a brick wall for so many years, what would it hurt?

So I sent away for the CD and also began an online correspondence with the transcriber. He recognized my family name and immediately began providing extra information beyond the CD transcriptions that he had in his own genealogy records. His family line was from the same town.

I had hit the genealogy jackpot! And so now, just a few months later, I have tons of information going back a few more generations. I was so grateful to my new online friend because he had gone out of his way to answer extra Domelle mysteries for me. The only thing I could think of to help him was to ask if he had any people in his family tree that had emigrated to America. I figured I could research them and give him whatever I found. I was so pleased to be able to pay him back with information on his tree. :-)

And so, here is my updated Surname Saturday posting on my DOMELLE family line.

The surname DOMELLE (variants I've found are: DOMELE, DOMMELE, DOMLE, TOMELE, DUMELLE) first showed up in the US at the beginning of the 20th century. The surname also exists in Canada, apparently some family members went straight Canada, but I've been unable to connect the two families, although due to the rarity of the name, it's extremely likely they are related.

The main family members who emigrated to the US (both DOMELLE and DOMELE) listed their birth places as either NagyOsz or Gattaja. In fact, the same person would switch back and forth on which town was listed. They all spoke both German and Hungarian.

Nagyősz is the old Hungarian name for the modern town of Tomnatic in Romania (Triebswetter is the German name for the same town). Gattaja is the old German name for the modern town of Gătaia in Romania (Gátalja is the Hungarian name).

My DOMELLE immigrants to the US were 4 siblings and a cousin and his family:

Siblings
William DOMELLE (b. NagyOsz, Hungary, arrived Port of New York, 04 October 1911)

Nicholas DOMELLE (b. NagyOsz, Hungary, arrived Port of New York, 26 June 1907)

Anna Magdalena DOMELLE (b. Gattaja, Hungary, arrival date still unknown, but before birth of first son in Chicago, in July 1911)

Lena DOMELLE (b. Gattaja, Hungary, arrived Port of New York, 04 October 1911)

Cousin
John DOMELE (b. NagyOsz, Hungary, arrived Port of New York, 30 March 1906)

wife Mary TUNNER DOMELE (b. Visesha, Hungary, arrived Port of New York, 30 March 1906)

son Anthony DOMELE (b. NagyOsz Hungary, arrived, arrived Port of Baltimore, 30 April 1910)

son Martin Anthony DOMELE (b. Visesha, Hungary, arrived Port of Baltimore, 30 April 1910)

Most ended up in Chicago, then moving down to Lake Village, Indiana to farm. Both sisters married and ended up in Michigan.

The etymology of the surname DOMELLE has stumped me for a while now. At first glance it looks French to me, but the family stated their ethnicity was German while they lived in Hungary. They spoke German and Hungarian. My family pronounces it "DOM-lee". Family lore also states that the move to Hungary (which appears to have happened in the late 1700s) was from the Alsace-Lorraine region, so we are back to French/German back and forth with that region. My further research in the past few months confirms the Alsace-Lorraine origin of the name, but no further information on that.

As with the KLEYLEIN's, there aren't a lot of DOMELLE's out there. So if your last name is DOMELLE, it's highly likely we're related!

Here's my updated ahnentafel:

1. Leah KLEYLEIN - Me!

3. Deborah DOMELLE - my Mom!

6. William Adam DOMELLE - my Grandfather! He was born in Newton County, Indiana and grew up there on his father's farm. He moved to New York and met and married my grandmother, Ann MIX.

12. William DOMELLE, born 27 Oct 1882 in NagyOsz, Hungary; died 20 Aug 1943 in Jasper County, Indiana. He met and married his 2nd wife Elizabeth OBENDORFER in Chicago, Illinois. They later moved south to Lake Village, Indiana to farm, along with his brother Nick and cousin John. William had a wife back in Europe prior to his emigration. Her name was Magdalena THIERJUNG and they had 2 children, George and Anna. They did not emigrate.

24. Adam DOMELLE, born Bet. 1850 - 1860 in NagyOsz, Hungary; died 1889 in NagyOsz, Hungary. He was married to Christina REISER.

48. Baldasar DOMMELE, born 1814 in Glogowatz, Austria-Hungary; died 1894 in NagyOsz, Hungary. He was married to Maria KLEIN. Baldasar was a master blacksmith, along with many other members of the Domelle family.

98. Baltasar DUMELLE, born 1790 in probably in Glogowatz, Austria-Hungary. He married Barbara PFAFF.

192. Antonius TOMULE, born 1771 in Glogowatz, Austria-Hungary. He married Regina STROHOFFER.

384. Paul TOMULE, born about 1721. He married Maria Anne KLEIN.

Happy 5th Blogiversary to Me!

2013-03-31T19:12:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty sure 5 years of anything on the internet equals about 150 years in real time, so I'm pleased to see how long this whole blogging thing has lasted for me! Who knew!

Thank you to everyone who reads and comments - I do enjoy having a forum to share research findings and photographs and I value all your comments.

And now, my favorite yearly tradition, the oddest search terms people have used to find my blog:

1. Empty Cat Bed

Aww. This makes me sad. :-(

2. Getting Undressed

It's true. Once I wrote about getting undressed, but only to point out how I manage to trip and fall whilst doing so.

3. Money Maker Flower

? If i had one of those, I'd be sitting in a much nicer chair right now, that's for sure.

4. Queen Victoria Funny

For her sake, I hope she was.

5. Septum Keeper

I don't even want to know. I wrote about my nose once but this just seems a bit odd. Would one be keeping something in one's septum or would one be keeping one's septum in something else? Or does one want to be sure to keep one's septum. I do know that I like mine right where it is.

6. Thufir Hawat

What? Don't all of you have posts that would lead this person to your blog by typing this in? Just keep calm and keep the spice flowing.

7. just like she suddenly became

I'm worried about this person. I feel like they are concerned about someone but don't know what to do. She became what? Agitated? Angry? Happy? Sad? Indifferent? I hope they figured it out.

8. my diaper pins

So they are searching for "their" diaper pins? I didn't realize people still used them - I figured that binder clips would work fine for that because they aren't pointy. I've solved a lot of problems with binder clips.

9. grim litany

I see I might need to lighten up a bit in my posts for the coming year.

10. mickey mouse tombstone

This is what I get for blogging both about genealogy and family trips to Walt Disney World.

And now, off to start year 6!!

Time Travel at the Microfilm Machine - Part 2

2013-03-31T17:08:00.001-04:00

Back in January I did a post showing some wonderful doodles I found in church records while at the microfilm machine.

It was such a treat to see those little drawings while scanning through pages and pages of Latin church records. I thought a lot about the man who made those drawings.

Well - the other night I came across my friend again! Back in January I was looking at church records for baptisms. This time, for the same town, I was looking at church records for marriages - and when the year turned to 1777, there he was again! My artist friend!

Handwriting matches and everything. :-) For the marriage book it looks to me like he drew a field of some kind of grain? Also there is a young oak tree in a pot with acorns, and finally what looks to me like a pear tree with one pear hanging. I'm not sure what he drew under the numbers of the year.

And yes, I know a lot more church Latin now than I did a few months ago.

Also, I thought I had come across populations that liked to use the same names over and over - for instance I have New England ancestors where it's Thomas, son of Thomas, son of Thomas, son of Thomas - I'm not kidding! And the women are all named Elizabeth or Rebecca.

But these Germans who were living in Romania - holy cow did they use the same names over and over. When I was looking at the baptism records - it seemed like the witnesses/godparents, whatever they were (I'm not yet an expert on 18th century Catholicism for Germans in Romania - but don't worry I'll get to that) - the child ALWAYS had the name of one of the witnesses, depending on gender.

So what if you were a creative sort and wanted to give your child a name other than Joannes, Henricus, Petrus, Magdalena, Maria or Anna? Seems like you were out of luck.

Even the unusual names, like Casparius - sure enough, the male witness/godparent had that same given name.

I find it so interesting to look at the original records! It opens up a million additional questions, but it's totally worth it.

Domelle FamilyTreeDNA Results

2013-03-16T16:10:00.002-04:00

I received results for the Family Finder DNA test from FamilyTreeDNA - a few years back, my maternal Grandfather William Domelle indulged me by allowing me to send in his DNA and I finally ordered the Family Finder test in December.

The website says that the Family Finder test provides an analysis of ethnic percentages. Here is what it says about my maternal grandfather, surname Domelle:

So basically, very European!!

This does fit perfectly with the research I've done on the Domelle family.

My Domelle line emigrated to the US from early 20th century Hungary (now modern Romania). They identified themselves as ethnic Germans who migrated south from the Alsace-Lorraine region (the Donauschwaben).

My grandfather's haplogroup is R-M198 (which is also known as R1a1a apparently).

His mtDNA results put him in haplogroup H.

And now full disclosure: I have no idea what any of this means!!! I'm so glad I got my grandfather to take the test, but honestly I know absolutely nothing about what all this really means other than the obvious - that 25% of me is definitely European. :-)

Wordless Wednesday - 13 March 2013

2013-03-13T20:55:00.003-04:00

My Visit to Mainz

2013-03-02T17:21:00.000-05:00

I had the opportunity to travel to Mainz Germany a couple weeks ago on a trip for work. I was able to take a few hours and tour through the city and of course do my favorite thing when in a European city: visit its' cathedral!

It was last March that I got to visit Basel in Switzerland and see the Rhine river. I got to see the Rhine again on this trip as well! Mainz is about 200 miles north of Basel. Oh, and as I learned, it's not pronounced like the plural of the state of Maine, but more like "meiynz". Or maybe if you see how the French spell it "Mayence" that will better explain it.

Anyway, here is the Rhine river, a much further north and much more downriver version that what I saw a year ago in Switzerland.

Just like Basel Switzerland, Mainz is a very old city, first starting as a Roman settlement. Another reason you should know about it is that it's where Johannes Gutenberg was born and where he, in 1455, printed the Gutenberg Bible.

I didn't get to go to any museums during my tourist day there because they were all closed. Much to my surprise, I learned that this area of Germany is very Catholic. I guess it just never occurred to me since we always get taught about Martin Luther and such. So anyway, when I was there it was immediately prior to Fat Tuesday. But it wasn't really a celebration of just Fast Tuesday like we have in the US - it was more of a week long carnival/parade celebration, in fact the locals did refer to it being "carnival". There were parades, parades and more parades, stalls were set up in the main squares for food and games for children and everyone was just generally jolly!

The big celebration day was what they called "Rose Monday (Rosenmontag)" (the day before Fat Tuesday) when they said 500,000 people descend upon the city for a day of parades and carnival. I didn't see that day due to work, but I saw lots of other parades over the course of many days!!

The whole town was done up in red, white, blue, yellow and most disturbingly, clowns, which is the theme of carnival.

Lots of cities in the region have carnivals, for instance Cologne is another big one that celebrates. Also, apparently each city's carnival has a "battle cry" - so while paraders are parading, they shout out the battle cry and the people on the streets shout it back. And it's bad form to shout another city's battle cry. :-)

I know the Mainz battle cry quite well now - it's "Helau!" The paraders would give a big arm wave and shout it while grinning and the parade watchers would shout it back - when I first heard it I had no idea what it was and I the only thing I could compare it to was the Jerry Seinfeld episode where he and George pretend to be talking like a stomach would say stuff like "HEL-LOOOO". That kept me laughing for a while while watching the parade. :-) Oh - and the parade watchers also dressed up in crazy clothing and costumes as well.

Lots and lots of paraders wore military uniform costumes that reminded me of what we see the British forces as wearing during the American Revolution. I learned later that the costumes were to mock different military forces that have occupied Mainz, especially during the early 1800s.

So yeah, big learning experience there!

Fortunately, although the carnival had the museums closed, I still go to go to the cathedral in Mainz, which they refer to as the "Dom". It's another red sandstone cathedral just like the one in Basel was.

Interestingly, the buildings that had been built up right next to the cathedral have not been demolished like in so many other cities, so it's hard to get a good feel for what the cathedral itself actually looks like at its base. But then again, I appreciated seeing one like this because really, it's more like what it really was all these centuries.

The entrance to the church is that dark looking wide alley where you see the person standing! It's hard to find when buildings surround the cathedral!

But you can get a good view of a very old bit - the Gotthard Chapel which was built in the 1100s. There is a very large wooden cross in there from the same time period, very beautiful. That's a statue of St. Boniface out front. As an American, it's hard for sometimes to comprehend age of buildings. I live in the Northeast and I see colonial houses all the time but they only date usually from the 1700s at most. And that's it! There's very very little of buildings from the 1600s to see in the US. To see a building that's been standing there in that very spot and looking just like it looks now since the 1100s boggles my mind!

Can you imagine trying to retro-fit a thousand year old cathedral for electricity and heat and internet and stuff? Not easy!!! But I guess there is always a way!

Wordless Wednesday - 27 February 2013

2013-02-27T19:54:00.000-05:00

Time Travel at the Microfilm Machine

2013-01-31T22:10:00.000-05:00

So there I was tonight, visiting my local Family History Center looking at the microfilm I ordered from Salt Lake City. It's church records from a little town called Triebswetter located in what is now western Romania. These baptism church records were from the 1700s and in Latin so I was slowly cranking through.

Some of the clergymen wrote very neatly, some not so much. The records are in date order and when a new year came along, sometimes the person who wrote it drew a few extra flourishes.

And then there was this guy:

How great is he?

And this is why genealogy is fun. Suddenly, without warning, you remember you are looking at real people - not just records and dates. Real people who lived real lives.

This clergyman sitting there drew that happy little house, what looks like a rose, a gravestone, a dove and what might actually be a dragon with a food bowl?

I love this guy. :-)

The year is 1776. It's the end of December in a small town in central Europe. Long dark nights and cold short days. No electricity, no paved roads, no hot running water. Far away in the rebellious English colonies in the new world George Washington is crossing an icy river.

It's also the Christmas season - maybe there has been some genial imbibing to celebrate? Or maybe my clergyman was looking forward with excitement to the new year?

Whatever the reason, this clergyman doodled the heck out of this paper when all he needed to do was write the numbers of the new year.

He not only doodled, but he doodled in the church baptism book - kind of important stuff! It made me smile.

And as I was hunched over my microfilm machine looking at this sheet, hundreds of years away, this clergyman hunched over this book, drawing these figures.

It was a very cool moment. :-)

In Which the Author Breaks a Brick Wall with a Mouse

2013-01-10T19:41:00.000-05:00

The other day I had a huge breakthrough on my DOMELLE family. I started doing genealogy in 1992 and I pretty much had the same information on them since that time - certainly I'd fleshed out some bits, but I never got any further back than my grandfather's grandfather. That was it, end of the line.

Last weekend after putting the Domelle 1940 census info into my database, I decided to do a random search on the internet and suddenly there I was, in a transcription of information from the "home town" of Domelle's, and I was staring at my grandfather's grandfathers name - along with his wife. The two names were exactly what family lore had always stated they were. I had just never had any tangible proof that these two people really existed.

It was huge!! I've worked on this line, on and off, for TWENTY, yes 2-0 years.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing!

So what did I do?

Like any self-respecting grown-up adult who has a job and owns a home and manages finances and has people at work who think she actually knows what she's doing, I burst into tears.

Why?

Because my grandfather passed away earlier this year. One day shy of 5 months to the day that I sat at my computer looking at those two names. I'll never get to tell him.

Ah well. Such is life. And certainly we genealogists know that is the way things go.

The good, the excellent news, is that my grandfather's brother is still alive. I get to tell him all about this. :-)

So here's how it all went down:

1. My grandfather's name is William Adam DOMELLE. He was born to the immigrant William DOMELLE, who settled in this country in 1911 (his brother Nicholas came over as well).

Here's my great-grandfather William, probably around the year 1905-ish, give or take a few years:

And here is his brother Nicholas, probably around the year 1920-ish:

2. In naturalization papers, William annoyingly only stated that his birthplace was Austria-Hungary. But his brother, Nicholas, bless his heart, named the town. It was Nagy Osz in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

3. In looking this up, I learned all about the Banat and the Donauschwaben and also that this little village went by 3 names, depending on what record you were looking at. If you were looking in current Romanian records, you needed to look up the village "Tomnatic". If you were looking in Hungarian records prior to WWII, you needed to look up Nagy Osz. But if you were looking at German records (because the settlers of this town were actually German), you needed to look up the village "Triebswetter".

This is a modern satellite photo of Tomnatic, Romania I got from Google Maps. See how sweet and orderly? From what I've read, it was laid out by a German. Named Triebswetter. :-)

4. My grandfather and great-uncle had always told me that their grandparents names were Adam DOMELLE and Christine REISER and that the family had actually originally come from the Alsace-Lorraine region.

5. In doing a random internet search on "Triebswetter", I stumbled into the middle of a site for people who will do research for you in Romania. The specific page I found was the middle of a discussion around how trustworthy some published transcriptions were. From that discussion I learned that there are these "Family Books" from various villages that list out transcribed church records. I also found a link to something called "Das Treffil Buch" which is a book of the personal notes kept by a gentleman named Peter Treffil who lived in Triebswetter (b. 1858 d. 1934). He basically kept track of who lived in what house in the town, along with notes of children and dates and interesting side notations on some people. He was the town amateur genealogist/historian basically. Apparently, some people discount this little book, they say it's in a little used German dialect and how can you trust some guys notes about people.

In my personal opinion, I think that fact that he kept these notes because obviously, he LOVED keeping track, makes it actually very valuable information, no more or less than any "official" church records. I think we genealogists all know that no matter how official a record is, you can still have a typo or human error of some sort.

So keeping in mind typos and all that, here I was, starting at Adam and Christine.

It was too much of a coincidence. I started to believe it was true.

6. And I kept looking through this little Treffil Buch. Not only was Adam there, but it said who his father was, and who his siblings were! And it spelled the last name mainly like this: DOMMELE.

So now I had more info on my line than I ever had before:

William Adam DOMELLE, son of
William DOMELLE, son of
Adam DOMMELE, son of
Baldasar DOMMELE

I used the heck out of Google Translate that day because everything is in sort of German, not to mention abbreviations. Google Translate gets most of it believe it or not, but sometimes it stumbles here and there. I don't care. I still remember what it was like looking at old records in other languages back when I started researching. :-)

7. There was also one part of my new favorite book that stated a little precious gem of information - it said that Adam's father, Baldasar, came to the village of Triebswetter in the 1830s from the village of Glogowach.

In my google-german I figured out it says something roughly like this about Baltasar DOMMELE:

"The father came here in the 1830s as a blacksmith's apprentice with a knapsack on his back from Glokowacz, his native place, hereafter Triebswetter. He was very efficient in crafting, felt loved, decided here to stay and married Mary of No. 16. They had a blessed marriage and healthy children."

Now honestly, can anyone have written anything nicer? I'm so grateful to Peter Treffil for keeping his little book about his neighbors.

8. But what about this hometown which was spelled about nine different ways in his notes? Turns out it's Glogowach - now there is a mouthful! But guess what, it's actually another village in the Banat. In Romanian, it's Vladamirescu. In Hungarian, it's Glogovac. In German, it's Glogowach.

9. And sure enough, after another wonderful internet search (oh how I love you internets!) I found actual other people who had done extensive research on the DUMELLE family of Glogowach. Especially here and here.

Yep, they spelled it DUMELLE, but it was the same family - and my Baldasar was right there.

10. So not only had I broken down my brick wall, but I had found other relatives who had already done extensive research.

They've hit a collective brick wall with going back further than Glogowach - but even their brick wall matched my verbal history - their ancestors had also stated that the family originally came from the Alsace Lorraine region. No one is quite sure where yet.

Conclusion:

Even though there is a new brick wall, I get to revel in the fact that I've added 3 generations back for my DOMELLE line.

I also get to revel in the fact that I got my grandfather's DNA tested and in theory, his male DNA should go straight back to that first DUMELLE that showed up in Glogowatz. Just imagine!

My final revel is in the fact that these records gave me new surnames for the wifes of these new DOMELLE ancestors! I now get to add REISER, WOLF and KLEIN to my surname list. And there's info on them too! I just didn't list in this post since I'm focusing on DOMELLE.

And what did I learn from all this? Keep doing those searches that never came up with anything before. You never know what will pop up on the Internet that will save you from making a trip to Romania.

Domelle's in the 1940 Federal Census

2012-12-27T15:12:00.000-05:00

Still taking a detailed look through the 1940 census and this time I focused on looking for Domelle families. It's another unusual surname like my Kleylein surname. I wrote an earlier blog post that describes what I know about the origin of my Domelle line. There are 2 variations on the name in the US, it's either "Domelle" or "Domele" and I'm told that the heads of the families of these 2 variants were cousins. Whether they were first cousins or 15th cousins I have no idea but the name is rare enough that I'm relatively certain they are related.

Today I just looked in the 1940 US Federal census for any occurrence of the name "Domelle" or its variant "Domele".

Here is what I found:

1) There are 9 households of Domelles in the US in 1940 (6 Domelles and 3 Domeles). There could be 1 or 2 more but they are currently spelled so incorrectly in the ancestry database that I couldn't find them. I might stumble across them later. :-)

2) 5 of them are in the northwest corner of Indiana (4 in Newton County, 1 in Lake County).

3) 3 of them are in Chicago, IL (not far from the northwest corner of Indiana - also 2 of those were young Domelle ladies on their own in the big city).

4) 1 of them wandered over to Tompkins County NY (thank goodness since that's where he met my grandmother!).

My direct line is the Newton County, Indiana 2-L Domelle branch of the family. It's my grandfather there in NY - he left behind the farm in Newton County.

Below is a map showing the distribution. Just one big cluster except for the 1 outlier over in NY.

Originally all the Domelles were in Chicago, but my great-grandfather and his brother moved down to Indiana to farm land for a family friend that owned it.

Kleyleins in the 1940 US Federal Census

2012-12-26T17:34:00.000-05:00

I actually have scheduled some time to wallow in genealogy this holiday season and today I began that wallowing by going through the 1940 census. I will admit that I am a bit disappointed in some of the transcription errors I came across (I've been using Ancestry and I know it was all out-sourced.). For instance, "Andrene" instead of "Andrew"? Come on.

But I'll also admit that the surname I searched on is not an easy one for transcribers or enumerators. Kleylein is a rare surname. Growing up I was so frustrated and wished my last name was Smith. Once I started genealogy though I counted my lucky stars for such an unusual name. I discussed its origin a bit in an earlier blog posting.

Today I just looked in the 1940 US Federal census for any occurence of the name "Kleylein" or its variant "Kleilein".

Here is what I found:

1) There are 12 households of Kleyleins in the US in 1940 (10 Kleyleins and 2 Kleileins). There could be 1 or 2 more but they are currently spelled so incorrectly in the ancestry database that I couldn't find them. I might stumble across them later. :-)

2) 5 of them are in the Baltimore, Maryland area.

3) 4 of them are in either Brooklyn or Queens, NY.

4) 1 of them are in Miami, Florida.

5) 2 of them (the Kleileins) are in Richland County, Ohio.

My direct line is the Baltimore branch of the family. It's my grandfather there in Miami living with his mom and step-dad - he came from the Baltimore Kleyleins.

Below is a map showing the distribution. Just a handful of clusters except for the 1 outlier way down in Florida.

Most of the Kleyleins are first generation immigrants or the children of those immigrants. It looks like the Kleileins were here earlier, in the 1800s and may have actually migrated to Ohio from Pittsburgh. That, however, is research for another day. :-)

Mix Children in the 1940 Census

2012-12-26T11:11:00.000-05:00

My grandmother Ann (Mix) Domelle was one of 10 children born in the Finger Lakes region of New York between the years 1905 and 1927.

Now that we have the 1940 census available, I went and looked up each of the Mix children to see where they were living at the time of the census.

1. Floyd Mix, the eldest, was living on Shaffer Road in Newfield, Tompkins County, NY. In his household was his wife Rena, their 4 children Betty, Beverly, Floyd Jr and Jean. Floyd's dad, William Mix, was also living with them. Floyd was 34 and working as a farm laborer. His dad was also working, listed as a laborer.

2. Spencer Mix, the 2nd eldest, was missing (as usual). Spencer left the area in 1933 and no one in the family heard from him again. I was unable to locate him in the 1940 census so he either avoided it or gave another name. He would have been married to a woman named Helen Smith with one child. I was unable to locate them as well. I do have Spencer's death certificate, but for now, his whereabouts in 1940 are still a mystery, as apparently, he wanted them to be! :-)

3. Laurance Mix, the 3rd child (and yes, that's how his name is spelled) was living on Niagara Falls Blvd, up in Wheatfield, Niagara County, NY. In his household was his wife Hazel and their 2 children Laurance Jr and Jessie. Laurance was 29 and working as a millwright.

4. Mazie Mix and her twin Daisy Mix were the 4th and 5th children and the 1st girls in the family. I'll focus on Mazie here for the moment. She was living in a rural area of Seneca, Ontario County, NY. She was married to John Patrick and they lived with their son John. Mazie was 27 and had no occupation listed so of course she was taking care of the house.

5. Daisy Mix was living at home with her mom Cornelia (Akins) Mix Simpson and her step-Dad Leon Simpson and 4 of her younger siblings. Their home was at 402 Center St, Ithaca, Tompkins County, NY. Daisy was 27 and working at housework in private homes.

6. William Mix, the 6th child and 4th boy, was living in Chatham, Tioga County, PA. In his household was his wife Mary and a hired hand named Leonard Coazer. William was 26 and working as a farmer.

7. Leslie Mix, the 7th child and 5th boy, was living at home with his mom Cornelia (Akins) Mix Simpson and his step-Dad Leon Simpson, his older sister Daisy and 3 of his younger siblings. Their home was at 402 Center St, Ithaca, Tompkins County, NY. Leslie was 21 and working at farm work.

8. Ann Mix (my grandmother), the 8th child and 3rd girl, was living at home with her mom Cornelia (Akins) Mix Simpson and her step-Dad Leon Simpson, her older sister Daisy, older brother Leslie, and 2 of her younger siblings. Their home was at 402 Center St, Ithaca, Tompkins County, NY. Ann was 20 and working at housework in private homes.

9. John Mix, the 9th child and 6th boy, was living at home with his mom Cornelia (Akins) Mix Simpson and his step-Dad Leon Simpson, his older sisters Daisy and Ann, and 1 younger sibling. Their home was at 402 Center St, Ithaca, Tompkins County, NY. John was 14 and attending school.

And last, but certainly not least!

10. Donald Mix, the 10th child and 7th boy, was living at home with his mom Cornelia (Akins) Mix Simpson and his step-Dad Leon Simpson, his older sisters Daisy and Ann, and his older brother John. Their home was at 402 Center St, Ithaca, Tompkins County, NY. John was 13 and attending school.

Finally, below I marked on a map the locations of the children of William Homer Mix and Cornelia Elizabeth (Akins) Mix Simpson as based on the 1940 Federal census. Other than Spencer, the Mix kids tended mainly to stay around the New York and very northern PA area, which I greatly appreciate as I do my research. :-)

Wordless Wednesday - 19 December 2012

2012-12-19T18:25:00.002-05:00

Wordy Wednesday - 12 December 2012

2012-12-12T19:53:00.000-05:00

This is my Uncle Steve. The story behind this slightly crooked photo is that it was taken by my mom, his younger sister, who was due to have a baby soon - the first of the 3 siblings to have a child.

He had been away and while he was gone, my mom had me (unexpectedly - a few weeks early) and no one told him. When he got home, he went to visit with his sister, she was in her bedroom supposedly resting. On his way to the bedside, he walked past the bassinet and this is the look on his face when he realized there was a baby in it! That baby was me, and my mom managed to snap this wonderful picture from the bed.

Surprises like that aren't easy to pull off any more - we're so intimately connected with everyone. It's a lovely picture that I'm so grateful to have!

Wordless Wednesday - 14 November 2012

2012-11-14T20:40:00.001-05:00

A Visit to Indiana

2012-10-18T19:04:00.000-04:00

Last week I took a trip to Indiana to visit with my 97-year-old Great Uncle Pete. My parents and my aunt took the trip with me as well, we drove out, visited, and drove back! We rented a minivan so everyone could have a roomy trip and now I'm thinking I need a new car because I don't have cell phone chargers and USB ports hiding out everywhere in my car! We're all so spoiled!

Anyway, we took the trip specifically to visit with my Great Uncle Pete Domelle. He is the last of the Domelle siblings, Tony, Mary and Bill (my grandfather) have all passed away.

It was just lovely visiting with him and with his daughter, my 1st cousin once removed, Mary. Mary and her husband Larry welcomed us and let me rummage through all kinds of photographs. :-)

Here is a photo of Mary and her 1st cousins, my Mom and aunt.

Uncle Pete regaled us with many stories during our visits with him! The last time we were out in Indiana was over 9 years ago.

It was strange - Uncle Pete doesn't really look like my grandfather, but the way he used his hands - the gestures he made, as well as the cadence of his speech - when it came to that they were nearly twins!! It made we wonder - did they learn their gestures from being around their father? Uncle Pete would still toss out a German word or two - growing up, their parents were immigrants and spoke German. My grandfather says he remembers his dad reading German language newspapers from Chicago (they lived in the northwest corner of Indiana).

I'm so glad we were able to make this trip. It was a long car drive but so worth it to visit with everyone!!!!

Wordless Wednesday - 17 October 2012

2012-10-17T21:08:00.001-04:00

Wordless Wednesday - 12 September 2012

2012-09-12T19:17:00.001-04:00

It's me and my sister. If you look carefully, you can see I'm hanging on to her arms for dear life probably trying to keep her from rolling off the prop. My guess is if you want to know where my Mom was, follow her gaze. I'm dutifully looking at the photographer trying not to mess up the shot. :-)

I'm younger in this picture than my nephew is now. Which of course doesn't make sense since I'm only 15 now. :-D

My First Enumerator!

2012-09-02T17:47:00.000-04:00

Imagine my delight as I'm transcribing data from the 1940 census and I see that the enumerator is one of my Domelle relatives!

She's not technically a blood relative, she's Mae BINGHAM DOMELE, the wife of my 2nd cousin twice removed, Tony DOMELE, son of John DOMELE. This line uses only one "L" in spelling of the name.

Seems she is the enumerator for Lake Township, Newton County, Indiana. Yay for Mae!

At the time she did this, she was 35 years old, with a 12 year old and 15 year old at home.

Wordful Wednesday - I am the Keeper of Things

2012-08-29T19:44:00.001-04:00

This is a photograph of a corner of my living room. As some of you know, my grandfather recently passed away. His birthday is in a couple of weeks - he would have been 94!! He lived a long and full life and I miss him, and my grandmother (who passed away nearly 2 years ago) every day.

Now that they are both gone, the family did what families need to do, and we went through their belongings making sure that important items and furniture went to those in the family who wanted or needed items. We then had an estate sale for the rest of the things. It wasn't easy, seeing my grandparents belongings carried away out the front and back doors of the house.

What made that a trifle bit easier to bear was the knowledge that some of those items went to people who needed them so badly - one person was gathering items for her neighbor, whose house had just burned down. Another was a young couple that had just moved to the area and had no furniture at all. Another was a petite elderly lady, who was so grateful for the chair to put in the bathtub because her husband needed help bathing.

And now after that, I have my pile of boxes and items. As the family genealogist and historian, I was the default whenever a pile of papers was found. They always save it for Leah and I am so happy for that! (You don't know how easy it is for my Mom to throw things out. She would probably have tossed me and my sister long ago except that we're hard to catch!! Well, ok, maybe she have just tossed me, I was the really annoying teenager and probably deserved to be out on the curb - my sister was the smart one!)

It's hard though, looking at this corner. I dutifully brought everything home and packed it neatly in boxes and stowed it away here in this corner where I don't see it every day. When we are gone, we leave behind all the detritus of life - receipts for things you don't own anymore, rubber bands, spare glasses. And someone has to come in and decide what is important and what isn't. When we're alive, we think it's all important. I have a fabulous collection of plastic bags I use to take out the kitty litter. Do I need 8,000 plastic bags? Well, I guess I'm planning ahead in case tomorrow the world suddenly stops manufacturing them and after all, I need some way to get the kitty litter out of the house. Did I mention I use recyclable bags and paper bags only now? I don't even bring new plastic bags into the house and yet the piles of them never seem go down down.

I'd be mortified if something suddenly happened to me and my family came into my house and had to make decisions about what to keep and what to toss. I'd probably have to haunt one of them if they threw something vital out, like my important collection of wheat-back pennies in the console of my car. There's at least 5 of them there, and a 1976 quarter too. I just know my mom would gather it up and put it in a regular coin jar or something!!! And someone would just SPEND it WITHOUT knowing!

So yes, my point here really is actually that yes, as a genealogist I do have a very high-level view about life and death. I see my families where children have died as babies, I see my families where a spouse passed away while still young, I see families that never had children and I fret for them, wondering who took care of them when they were old, even though they died more than 100 years ago. I know death happens, it has happened for always, and it will keep happening.

But it is hard when it's so close and personal, and you actually have custody of someone else's belongings. I feel a responsibility for all those papers I carefully packed away. And yet I hesitate to look at them because, well, they aren't mine.

A while back, my Grandfather allowed me to take a box of old letters to scan. When I went through them, there was one that was from my Grandfather to my Grandmother. He was away on a business trip, this was back in the early 1960s. He wrote stuff for the whole family and then he wrote in the letter that the rest of it was for "Mom" only to read.

So you know what I did of course? I folded it up and put it back in the envelope. Maybe one day I will read it, maybe never. I'll have to figure that one out.

Taking a peek into someone's life when they lived 200 years ago is fascinating. The distance in time makes it so interesting. Taking a peek into my grandparent's life, when they aren't here to frame the discussion for me, well, that's harder.

In the meantime, this stuff will sit for a bit in my living room, getting accustomed to its' new custodian. When it's ready, it will welcome me in.

Obituary of William A. Domelle (1918 - 2012)

2012-08-12T11:31:00.001-04:00

Last Tuesday my grandfather passed away. He was just over a month shy of his 94th birthday. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to visit with him in the past couple of weeks, his health declined very rapidly at the end, and he was able to pass away peacefully, in his own home.

I can't say enough for the good that hospice workers do. It must be so hard to walk into a house where you've been told to go, and you don't know what you are walking into what with worried and stressed relatives. Hospice workers are people who embody how we all should be acting towards one another.

My grandfather was born on a farm in northwest Indiana. He always called it "flat, flat, flat" when I asked him about it. His parents were immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire (specifically from the western part of what is now modern-day Romania) and he remembered them speaking in German to each other when they didn't want the kids to know what they were saying. :-)

He was super intelligent - the type of person that would say, okay, I'm going to build a house now for my family - and he did! He learned what he needed to and just did it. Nothing stopped him. In the early 1980s, he decided he wanted to learn computers, and he did, in his spare time! In the last week, I saw receipts and letters and manuals for computers I'd never heard of from the 80s. He was exchanging letters with people discussing nitty-gritty details about computing that I couldn't even begin to understand.

He was one of the hardest working people I will ever know.

He spent his life doing carpentry and construction, and once he retired from that, he got terrible arthritis. He never complained though. And he always ate whatever you put in front of him. We asked once about that, like my mom would ask him what his preference was for dinner and such and he would never really give her the preference. He always said that if someone was going to go through the trouble of making food for him to eat, then he was going to eat it. It is a good philosophy and one which makes me feel I owe my mother an apology for being a picky eater as a child!

I miss you Grandpa, and I love you!

Below is the text of his obituary:

MILLERSBURG - William A. Domelle, 93, passed away Tuesday at his home.

Born in Newton County, Indiana, on September 16, 1918, son of the late William and Elizabeth Obendorfer Domelle. He met his future wife, Anna G. Mix, in 1938, and they married in 1942. They lived in Millersburg for the past 30 years.

He was a retired self employed carpenter.

He was pre-deceased by his wife of 68 years, Anna, 2010, and a son Stephen, 1998.

Surviving are his two loving daughters, Deborah Kleylein, Philadelphia and Rebecca Lucas, Lykens; 9 grandchildren; numerous great grandchildren; one brother Peter, Indiana.

Services will be held at the convenience of the family.

Wordless Wednesday - 25 July 2012

2012-07-25T19:58:00.000-04:00

(You know it's a good party when you can start building structures out of the champagne corks!)

Tombstone Tuesday - John Francis Mix

2012-07-03T20:09:00.000-04:00

My Great Uncle John Francis Mix died in 1981. I've posted his obituary in a past entry (here) and recently I scanned this picture taken on May 26, 1995 of his gravestone.

My Mom always referred to him as Uncle Johnny so that's what I've always called him during my research. I have a vague memory of meeting him before he died, but it's not corroborated my the memories of my Mom or Aunt. So much for memory!!! :-)

He's buried in Hector Union Cemetery, in Burdett, Schuyler County NY.