Geneology and Medical History

First of all, I want to say thanks to my AHSGR friends and the thoughtful and cheerful gift that was sent to me at the hospital. Also thanks for the get-well cards. I am home and doing well. Modern medicine is amazing! My recent experience has certainly helped me to see the importance of knowing your family medical history. With that in mind, I'd like to share some archaic medical terms that you might find while researching your ancestors (Family Tree Magazine):

Rheumatic fever: Fever, swollen joints and inflammation of heart valves

Scarletina: Scarlet fever

Sugar diabetes: Diabetes mellitus

Pleurisy: Inflammation of the membrane around the lungs, often from pneumonia

Phytogenic fever: Typhoid fever

Cachexia: Wasting away from poor nutrition due to illness

Black lung: Anthracosis

Dry bellyache: Lead poisoning

Apoplexy: Sudden brain impairment, as in a stroke

Marsh fever: Malaria

Dipsomania: Alcoholism

Flux: Diarrhea

Here are two more that I've found in my family research:

Dropsy: An abnormal accumulation of fluid in the body, sometimes associated with heart or kidney disease

Pott's Disease: Tuberculosis of the spine

An Amazing Video

Once again Suzanne has shared something wonderful. Check out this site for a documentary on a Mennonite family during Stalin's reign:

http://www.throughtheredgate.com/?action=Home

Chapter Meetings

During the October meeting of AHSGR, plans continued for the 2011 Conference to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah. There are still several chair positions that need to be filled, so if you are interested please be sure to attend the next meeting which will be held:

November 14th
3040 Homecrest Street (in the clubhouse)
West Valley City, Utah

The officers will meet at noon and the general meeting will start at 1:00 P. M. Sharon White will be the hostess.

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

The December 12th meeting will be at Carol Harless and Shawnette Malan’s house. There will be no Board Meeting. Everyone will meet at 12:00 noon. We will have a Christmas party. Bring a Christmas story pertaining to the Germans from Russia. The food will be a Christmas theme. We will have a gift exchange with a limit of $5.00. Karen Dellos will be in charge of games.

Bring your German recipes to the meetings. We are going to try to sell a chapter cookbook in order to raise some money.

Try This Site

Suzanne has contributed another great site for us to try:

https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Germans_from_Russia

Free Forms and More

I just read an article in the Family Tree Magazine about heirlooms, which for me help tell the story of our families. If you are like me, you don't have many from your German-Russian line. My goal is to leave a little more of that personal story from my generation so that the next one doesn't have to work quite as hard at is as I have. If that is something you are interested in, here is a very condensed version of some of the ideas in the article:

1. Make a list of the heirlooms in your possession. Tell the story that goes along with them, and write it down as well. Categorize them into groups, such as photos, documents, objects, etc.

2. Share any photos you have by making duplicates. Send labeled prints to other family members, then there are other pictures if something happens to the originals.

3. Organize the documents in an archival container. Dig into your memory and write down as many stories and anecdotes as you can.

4. Organize your research so that is easy to find what you need when you need it.

There are free forms availble at www.familytreemagazine.com that will help you with this project.

Newspaper Archives

As you already know, many German-Russian immigrants settled in Colorado. If you are one of the many who have ancestors who settled there, this site is the one for you. It covers 147 Colorado newspapers from 1859- 1923. I can't tell you how surprized I was once I did some searching. I found one article about my uncles that made me cry, one that made me proud, and one that made me laugh. It is amazing what reporters got away with in the early 1900's. Check out this site:

http://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/

Try This Site

I promised at the last meeting that I'd try out some new sites and let you know what I thought about them. Here is one that I liked and had some success on:

www.findagrave.com

I actually found my grandfather's grave on this site. If you are lucky like I was, it will even have a picture of the headstone. If it doesn't have a headstone picture, you can make a request for it and a photographer will be sent out to take one and add to the page. The section and plot number is also given. I have never visited my grandfather's grave, but now I will. It is awesome!

September Meeting

This is just a reminder about the next Intermountain Chapter AHSGR meeting:

September 12, 2009
Retirement Community Clubhouse
3040 Homecrest Street
West Valley City, Utah

The board will meet at noon, with the general meeting at 1:00 P.M. Bring an idea for the 2011 Convention theme. We are looking for new members, so if you haven't joined our chapter, please come and join us!

August Meeting

The most recent meeting of the Intermountain Chapter of AHSGR was held Saturday, August 15, 2009. During the meeting members reviewed the by-laws for the chapter and shared publications and other resources which have been useful in their research. Much discussion was held concerning the opportunity to host the 2011 National AHSGR Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah. Many volunteers will be needed, and it is hoped that membership will grow in the coming months.

Holy Cross Church, Pfeifer, Kansas

Just to give you some background on the last posting, I wanted to share this picture. It doesn't show the church in great detail, but you can certainly gain a feel for its beauty. The story behind it is really quite amazing. I loved it because it showed the faith of the Germans from Russia. In 1875 the first group of Germans left their home in Pfeifer, Russia, and eventually arrived in Kansas the following year. Before a church was built, the people erected a huge cross where they gathered on Sunday to worship. In 1879 their first church was built and was simpler in architecture than this one. The current church was completed in 1891. The people had contibuted to its construction with donations of wheat that was sold as well as labor by parishoners who were stone-masons and carpenters.

Just a note- the Holy Cross Church was was named one of the "8 Wonders of Kansas Architecture" by the Kansas Sampler Foundation in 2008. Donations for the restoration of the church are appreciated:
Holy Cross Charities
1606 Sarratov
Pfeifer, KS 67660

Letters from Russia

In the recently published newsletter of AHSGR a letter found in the Ellis County News, Hays, Kansas, was printed. The letter from Pfeifer, Russia, to Joe Stramel in Pfeifer, Kansas, described the conditions in Russia in 1921. On a visit to Pfeifer, Kansas, I picked up a small publication on the history of their beautiful Holy Cross Church. I found the bottom picture in that publication. I'm not sure if it is the same Joe Stramel, but found the picture interesting. I took the top picture of the small post office which gives you a more complete idea of the setting. The post office was closed at the end of 2008.

More Great Websites

It is just amazing what the online resources are for us. In April, I made a list of links for some generic sites that might be helpful in your search. Be sure and refer back to them. I'm adding some more resources from Suzanne, some are more specific to the German-Russian search. Try them out!

http://www.angelfire.com/ks/gerrus/index.html

http://www.lowervolga.org/

http://www.lowervolga.org/Obituaries/old/obituaries.htm

www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/ethnic.html

www.images.google.com/hosted/life

http://www.search.labs.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#start

www.odessa3.org

www.archives.ca

www.collectionscanada.ca/archivianet/passenger/index-e.html

www.ahsgr.org

www.rootsweb.com

www.feefhs.org

www.library.ndsu.edu/grhc

www.sggee.org

http://www.cu-Portland.edu/giving/success/librarylive.cfm

http://www.archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ger-volga

FAMILY HISTORY EXPO

Just google family history expo to get all of the details, but here are the basics:
Family History Expo
Sandy, Utah
August 28- 29, 2009
It looks to me like there are several sessions on German research. Registration is $68 and is non-refundable. Check it out!

More Information

CORRECTION: The next meeting for our chapter will be held August 15, 2009, at the the home of Carol Harless and Shawnette Malan. Officers will meet at noon and the general meeting will start at 1:00 P.M. The address is 10001 Hook Dr., South Jordan.
Bring a book of geneological interest to share with the group. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Latest Updates

I'm sending out an apology for not updating sooner, but I'm having a fantastic summer and have been out of state for a couple of weeks. Thanks to the members and others who have contributed to the new information which I am now posting. Some of you have already received this as emails, but it will probably be helpful to have it all in one spot for reference. We continue to recruit new members, so hopefully someone will come across this blog and become interested in our chapter. Also, I'm sending out get well wishes to our chapter president, Carol Harless, who is recovering from an injury.


Below is a site for a video from the individual presentations made during the German-Russian conference at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, June 27, 2009. It is historic footage from a Volga German village made for Mr. Biel of Chicago, Illinois, during his visit to the area where he grew up. I found it fascinating.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of4S2SLpfJs

Check related videos at that site for Prof. Timothy Kloberdanz on what is correct- German-Russian or Russian-German. I also found very interesting related videos dealing with why Russia's ethnic Germans choose to stay in Russia and the problems that ethnic Germans from Russia are having when they return to Germany. It gives you an insight into how they are now living. For some reason I was unable to get these to link directly from the blog.


From Ted Gerk, via the Ger-Volga mail list:

I've digitized an old book I obtained from Russia:
Kamyshinskaia operatsiia desiatoi Krasnoi Armii. Iiul' 1919 goda. S3 skhemami na otdel'nykh.
Kliuev, L 1928

It deals with the civil war and fighting between the Red and White Forces near Kamyshin and the Volga German colonies in that area. Also there is a battle map of various campaigns in Russia. They are featured at my Josefstal blog located at:
http://www.josefstal.org/

Feel free to use the material as you see fit.