This week’s optional theme for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is “Defective, Dependent, & Delinquent.” Amy Johnson Crow describes the theme this way: In 1880, there was a special census schedule for “Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent Classes” — the blind, deaf, paupers, homeless children, prisoners, insane, and idiotic. Do you have someone in your family…
Category: Sigmund
John Campbell – Finding the Family Patriot – 53 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2015 #27
I wonder how many men fought for American independence whose ancestors could not prove their active service. In February 2014, I wrote about my husband’s side of the family. John Campbell’s wife, Mary Jackson Campbell, struggled for nearly nine years trying to receive a widow’s pension of an old Revolutionary soldier. (See “Mary Jackson Campbell…
James Burton Evans – A Murder Story Halfway Told – 52 Ancestors 2015 #26
This is the halfway point for the 2015 edition of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. I am proud that I have kept up with my posts so far this year. I did have a little help from guest bloggers Gary Barlow and Ingemar Nåsell and for that I offer them a big “thank you!” Since…
John L. Sigmund – A Black Sheep in My Mind – 52 Ancestors 2015 #20
Technically, John L Sigmund may not have been a “black sheep” but for some reason, I just never had a good feeling about my husband’s 3rd great-grandfather. When I began researching him, I couldn’t put my finger on it. He was born about 1821-1823 to Jacob Sigmund, Jr. and Catherine Letherman Sigmund and he died…
Margaret “Maggie” Miranda Walton – Our Link to Founding Colonial Families – 52 Ancestors #48
Entry #48 My mother-in-law is the one with the deep Colonial American ancestry. It took me years of research (due to several errors in a family tree compiled by one of her aunts) to tap into these lines. My mother-in-law’s great-grandmother was NOT Margaret Amelia Walton, but Margaret “Maggie” Miranda Walton. Maggie Walton’s husband, Theodore…
James Burton Evans – A Teen Stabbed on the Street in Philadelphia – 52 Ancestors #44
Entry #44 I have three historic newspaper subscriptions, and I try to search for ancestors and their offspring in the appropriate collections. Sometimes the news is disturbing. In the case of 15-year-old James Burton Evans, who was the son of Abner James Evans and Mary E. Brown Evans, it was fatal. The family tragedy of…
Johann Hans Michel Sigmund – The Ordeal of the Love and Unity – 52 Ancestors #40
Entry #40 It is not my intention to write the definitive history of Johann Michael Sigmund. My mother-in-law’s cousin, Nancy Schanes has done most of the research on the Sigmund family, and I gratefully acknowledge her work. I met Nancy this past summer and I immediately felt the bond that can develop between two people…
Anna Catherina Eviflon – No One in the World Has this Surname – 52 Ancestors # 39
Entry #39 The name of my husband’s great, great grandmother was given to me as Anna Catherina Eviflon. It can be a blessing and a curse to receive information that was recorded by elderly relatives about their ancestors. I am not sure who in the Brown or Holtzman family typed up the one page rudimentary…
Evelyn Mulloy – Tragically Burned – #52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #33
Entry #33 Last week I had occasion to finally meet Nancy Schanes, who is a Sigmund cousin of my mother-in-law, Evelyn Hartley. Nancy and I have communicated off and on for at least 20 years about the Sigmund family. I have been staying in Southeastern Pennsylvania for about a week and decided it was time…
William Sigmund or William Wilson? – Three Civil War Photographs – #52 Ancestors #31
Entry #31 A few weeks ago I mentioned having found a photo in my mother-in-law’s possession that was pretty exciting. It was a Civil War vintage photo of a young soldier in uniform, and, of course, as my luck always goes, it was unidentified. My mother-in-law could not tell me anything about it. She did…