Another View From Pfeifer

 

This window is in the Burghardt home that stands across the street from the church.

 

This is the garden spot of the Burghardt home.

 

This is a little further out, but can also be seen from the area of the Burghardt home.

Forging Ahead to 2011 Convention

The 2010 AHSGR Convention is being held in Lincoln, Nebraska, the first week in August. That means that we are really focusing on preparations for next year's convention to be held in Salt Lake City. What a great place to do genealogy! During our July meeting, members put together items to announce and encourage attendance at the Salt Lake City convention next year. We are small in numbers, but enthusiastic about the challenge. If anyone out there is interested in giving us a hand, we'd love to have your help. Please watch this blog for information concerning our August meeting.

DNA Surname Study

I don't claim to be an expert on DNA studies; I'm just learning. I have no personal experience with this, but have been considering its use. Maybe you'll decide that you've come to a dead end (no pun intended) and need to try something different. If so, this might be just the thing for you.

Here is a very simplified version of how it works. A long piece of DNA in males is passed down virtually unchanged from father to son. Surnames are generally passed down in the same fashion. So, a male should have the same Y chromosome as his father, grand-father, great-grandfather, and on and on... Amazing, isn't it! This means that two males with the same surname and same or similar Y chromosomes are often related through their paternal line.

That Y-DNA occasionally accumulates a harmless mutation before it is passed down to a son. These rare changes occur at a known rate, acting as a clock that can measure time. When testing reveals a relationship through the paternal line, this clock can be used to estimate the amount of time since their most recent common paternal ancestor. In this way, the men may be able to determine who that most recent common ancestor was and how their family branches diverged.

Surname studies can take advantage of this information and connect you with other members who might be closely or distantly related. These connections can also be important to adoptees. Because of nonexistent or missing paper records or confusing oral traditions, DNA testing can help fill in some gaps.

For more complete information on this, read Making Matches in the September 2010 family tree magazine. Also, check out the website for Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation at: www.smgf.org

July Meeting

The next Intermountain AHSGR Chapter meeting is July 17th. It will be at the home of Shawnette Malan and Carol Harless: 10001 Hook Drive, South Jordan. The board will meet at 12:00 noon and the work meeting will start at 1:00 P. M. We are going to get ready for the Lincoln convention so we will not have our usual meeting. We will have the luncheon after the work session.
Food assignments are:
Salad: A-Ha
Entree: He-R
Dessert: S-Z

Getting Started on That Missing Line

A while back I talked to a woman with German-Russian roots. She knew that was her heritage from family tradition, but hadn't yet linked into any ancestors. If you are in the same spot, here are some tips from my own experience. I realize that many of you are way past that point, but hopefully this will be of benefit to someone who is just getting started.

When I began looking for ancestors in my late teenage years, no one even knew my grandmother's given name. I did know my grandfather's name and my grandmother's maiden name. That was my starting place. Luckily, she died in the states so I was able to locate my grandmother's death certificate with the information I had. That's when I realized that a death certificate can give you a great bit of information to get a good start on your research. To make it easy, I'll list some of the things you can learn from a death certificate. (Keep in mind that only the death information will be a primary source, but the secondary sources can give great clues.)

1. A place of residence is listed. This can help in locating obituaries, probate records, etc. When I found my great-grandfather's probate record it helped fill in his story a little, since I knew virtually nothing about him.

2. The person's parents are often listed. In my case, that meant I had another family name to start checking out. Before that time I didn't know my great-grandmother's given or maiden name.

3.If the person served in the military, it is sometimes listed. In the case of an uncle, also a stranger to me, I began to find many service related records that amazed me. He really excelled, and I would never have known that unless I had found out about his military service.

4. You can find out names of other people who are related to the deceased because someone, usually a family member, provides information for the death certificate. In my experience, I knew so little about my uncle that it was great to get his wife's name.

5. If you get the spouse's name from the death certificate, then you have a clue to begin looking for marriage records.

6. You gain information on the person's employment. I loved finding out that my great-grandfather was a carpenter.

7. Birthplace is important. Even though the death certificate is not a primary source for birth information, it sure helps to know where to start looking for it.

8. You can gain valuable medical information for your family's health history.

I know that this list is not complete, but it's some of the information that has been valuable to me in my family research. Even though my dad's generation was the first in my family born in America, I could get a start from his parents' death certificates, which eventually got me back into Russia. If you comb over a death certificate carefully, you will find many clues to get a good start on your search.

Burghardt Family Photo

This is a picture of my grandfather's (Joseph George Burghardt) family. My grandfather arrived in the USA in 1900, and was 24 years old at the time. I wonder if any of you know about the approximate date of this picture, using the clothing as a clue. I know it was taken in Russia, but I'm not sure if he brought it with him, or if it was sent to him later. With a date, I might have a better idea if he was one of the children or not. If you have the expertise to date this picture, I would appreciate your help.

Buttermilk Salad

This was one of my dad's (Edward Lewis Burghardt) favorite German family recipes.

1/2 small cabbage, chopped
3 large cucumbers cubed
3 bunches sliced green onions
2-3 bunches of cubed radishes

Mix together, and pour 4 Tbsp. vinegar and 1 tsp. salad oil (heated to boiling) over the top. Add 1 tsp. salt and 1/8 tsp. pepper. (Add more to your taste.) Add:
6- 8 chopped hard boiled eggs
1 large carton cottage cheese
2 quarts buttermilk

This lasts for quite a while in the fridge, and gets better the next day.

May Meeting

The next Intermountain Chapter AHSGR meeting will be Saturday, May 15, 2010, at the American Heritage Retirement Community Clubhouse, 3040 Homecrest Street, West Valley. The board will meet at 12:00 noon, and the general meeting will start at 1:00 P.M.

Food assignments are:
Salad: He-R
Entree: S-Z
Dessert: A-Ha

Darrell Weber will do the Bits and Pieces.
The basket for the raffle will be furnished by Leslie Hannay who won it at the April meeting.
Hope to see all of you there.

BERROKS

Recipe from Margurite M Bopp, about 1950
(Leslie Hannay’s grandmother)


Filling
3 lbs beef boiled or roasted (roast beef is best and I buy cheap cuts, but good meat)
1 large can of kraut, chopped (I use a knife to chop the kraut)
1 large onion
Salt and Pepper to taste

Grind meat and onions together in a hand grinder. In a large bowl, mix together ground meat, onions and chopped kraut and the juice from the kraut. I also add about ¼ cup water to the mix. Cover and refrigerate overnight. You will need all this juice as the meat takes it up. If the juice is omitted the berroks will be too dry.

Dough
In a bowl mix 4 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 2 beaten eggs, and ½ teaspoon salt. Add enough water to make a stiff dough. Roll out (not to thin). Using a saucer, cut out dough. Put about a tablespoon full of filling in the center, wet the edge, and fold over like you are making turnovers. Crimp close the edge with a fork.
Fry in hot bacon drippings, lard, or oil untill golden brown. The berroks will probably need to be turned to cook fully. When cooked, set on a cooling rack to drain the oil. Makes about 10-12 berroks.

NOTE: Today it is April 2010 and food is prepared a little differently. Making berroks is like making “pasties” for the coal miners, which is a meat pastry filled with meat and potatoes. The berrok filling is to be a soft chewy filling. The dough can be made of your favorite recipe and cooked in hot canola oil. If you want baked berroks, first mix 1 egg yolk and 2 tablespoons of water and brush egg mix on the tops of the berroks. Bake them at 350 degrees for about 20-25 minutes.
CAUTION: When baking, watch burning which means they are starting to overcooked.

Reminder

The next meeting of the Intermountain Chapter of AHSGR will be held Saturday, April 17, 2010, at the American Heritage Retirement Community Clubhouse, 3040 Homecrest Street, West Valley City, Utah. The board will meet at 12:00 noon, with the general meeting to follow at 1:00 P.M.

Check It Out

Visit the Warenburg, Russia post from February of this year. It has been edited to include more information I just recieved.

Warenburg Church

Sharon White contributed these two pictures of the Warenburg Church. The bottom one was taken in August 2003 by Sharon. It was the pride of the village when it was built. The roof has collapsed. There is no longer a floor, and animals now wander through it. The bricks were once white washed or painted. The first Warenburg Church was a wooden structure. It was replaced by this brick building that was built in 1902 or 1904, and seated 1200 people. It was built in the Kontor style which was chosen by the Saratov Kontor, the Office for Administrating the Colonies which dictated the style and plans.

Natural Disasters and Geneology

I recently read an article in Family Chronicle that talked about the natural disasters that left well-remembered landmarks in the lives of many of our ancestors. It got me thinking about a significant disaster that is part of my family story. My grandfather, Joseph George Burghardt, traveled to the U.S.A. from Russia via Germany. His arrival in Galveston was shortly after the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. His first introduction to this country was helping clean up the bodies from that disaster. Over 8,000 people died in that hurricane which destroyed most of the Texas port city. It has definitely been a landmark for me. Because so many records were destroyed, I've never found any record of his arrival on a particular ship. (I'm still looking.) I believe that many of our family stories are related to some sort of natural disaster. Below I've listed some sites that might be helpful in filling in details of our ancestors' stories.

www.tornadohistoryproject.com
This site has 52,000 tornado maps of storms dating from 1950 to 2008. Search by date, state,and county.

www.erh.noaa.gov/aly/Past/WINTER.htm
This site lists major winter blizzards beginning in 1888.

www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/doctor.htm
This is the site map for Weather Doctor, and its Weather Diary lists notable snowfalls and extreme temperatures over the past centuries in the US, Canada, and the world. It is arranged chronologically and sorted by month.

www3.gendisasters.com
This site gives an overall listing of disasters. Browse for reports by date, type of disaster, and state or Canadian province.

www.cyndislist.com/disasters.htm
This site has a collection of links regarding natural and man-made disasters.

March Meeting

 

 

We had a great time at our last meeting held on March 20th. Suzanne Heinitz-Dodge entertained us with Bits and Pieces of her family history. Planning continued for the 2011 AHSGR Convention to be held in Salt Lake City, and several new members were welcomed to the chapter. The basket raffle was won by Gwenn Oryall. We had a wonderful luncheon and invite any and all interested people to attend our next meeting to be held on April 17th.

More of Shirley Ansley's Family Pictures

 

Back row, left to right: Mary (Laffery), Anna (Cullip), Henry, John
Front row, left to right: Dorothy (Walchle), Esther (Knight), Lydia (Hastings), Emma (Knoche)
Not pictured: Louise (Grat), Pauline (Norris), Donald

 

Back row, left to right: Emma, Dorothy, Mary, Anna
Middle row, left to right: Esther, Pauline, Lydia, Louise
Front row, left to right: Conrad, Helena, John

Anna is Shirley's mother.