The story of my family history?

I recently entered Ancestry.com's Branching Out contest. As part of the requirement for entry I was asked to write a short piece on my family history story. It made me think about how this all began in first place...read on.

My family history story is one that started very young and yet too late. As a child, I loved to listen to the stories my Grandparents would tell. In fourth grade, I took my maternal grandfather with his WWII Navy war stories as my show and tell. I didn't know it, but I was bit by the genealogy bug. When my maternal Grandfather was sick and I was away in college, I dreamt of having the chance to interview him one last time and get it on video. After he passed away, life rolled on. I graduated college, got married and then another sickness. This time it was grandma. It was pancreatic cancer, stage 4. In her favorite recliner, still in her pajamas, Grandma struggled through reading a storybook on tape to preserve her voice and sickly image. I know now, no one really wants to be remembered that way; but she knew it meant the world to me and never mentioned she'd rather not be on video. After that, I have done what I could when time would allow it.

Fast forward to the present, 10 years after Grandpa's passing and I finally have a good start at my family history. A great uncle shared a wealth of information on my paternal lineage; a cousin thrice removed shared great detail on my husband’s mother’s side. I have some great family stories from my mother and her 8 siblings, and a few great aunts and uncles left whose brains must be picked before the Alzheimers steals their memories from them and us too. I have found many census records and located some family treasures within the family.

But my story isn’t complete. The family treasures have led to more questions, the yearning for more answers. Some online records seem to indicate perhaps the dry goods store my maternal grandfather’s family owned, whose ledger books are still held by my mother, might have been passed down from the generation before where we thought it began. The notes in those ledger books are priceless. Hand written in the margin “family – will never pay.” Who are these mysterious “family” members? How are they connected? Where do they all fit in?

Oh, if only I had unlimited time and resources!

Back on the horse

It's been a while since I've made the time to sit down and write anything so while I'm killing time at work, I thought I'd see what I can come up with.

I always thought it was great to hear stories about the house my maternal grandparents lived in. They built it, and started out in what we now use as the garage. As many times as I've heard the stories and seen the garage, I still have a hard time picturing it. When we found a picture of the garage house in their belongings after they passed away, I still had a hard time placing the house on the property in my minds eye. It was so strange to see the garage without the rest of the house as I knew it.

As their family grew, they added on a living room which eventually became the breezeway. They had so many children and so little room that as the story goes, two kids would be put to bed in my grandparents bed and then moved to the living room when my grandparents were ready for bed every night. Eventually, they built the house I grew up visiting. The runing joke was always that it was still never finished even after they had lived there for many years. In fact, I don't remember the full story, but the upstairs bathroom was never in working order when I was a kid. Finally when I was in high school I think it got finished. And I don't think the trim ever got totally finished.

As a kid, I always wanted to live in the house when I grew up.

That's what I had time for. More later.

Who came over on the boat? Rebandt edition

Word Count: 248 Today, 970 Total.

The question of which of my ancestors came to America from another country is the whole reason I got into family history research in the first place. Recently, a cousin asked me the same question. Since I have my notes handy from answering him, I thought I'd share the news with the rest of you as well. The chart pictured below shows the ancestors I'm referring to and how they are related to my more recent ancestors.

According to the 1900 US Census, Joseph Conrad Rebandt (b. 1850 d. 1910) arrived in 1874. In 1900 he was in Detroit, Michigan with his wife, Albertina. The two owned a dry goods store there which they later passed down to their son, Adam Boniface Rebandt (b. 1893 d. 1980). Albertina arrived in 1875 according to the same census. Joseph and Albertina were wed in 1880. Joseph and Albertina's great grand daughter recalls her father (their grandson) telling her the name of the store was "Mrs. A Rebandt's Dry Goods, Ladies & Gents Furnishings" on Junction and Buchanan in Detroit. Google map's panorama shows only one building remaining on this corner when searching the address of the store. Check it out here: https://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&layer=c&z=17&iwloc=A&sll=42.335144,-83.114613&cbp=13,102.8,0,0,0&cbll=42.335144,-83.114614&q=Junction+and+Buchanan,+Detroit,+Michigan&ei=vzFlUpbgIcbl4AP-oYGYAw&ved=0CCoQxB0wAA. 

Per the 1910 census, Joseph or George Girsch (b. 1873 d. 1966) arrived in 1880. In 1910 he was in Detroit, Michigan also. He married Mary Bosman (b. 1877 d. 1931).

Mary Bosman's parents, Rudolph Bosman (b. 1842 d. 1919) and Josefina Albertina Balk (b. 1852 d. 1915) arrived in 1870 according to the 1900 census. They were married in 1870. There is some discrepancy on the actual date that Rudolph arrived however. The 1910 census lists him as arriving in 1865. Obviously I have more research to do.

Truly, there is plenty more research to do on all of these ancestors and their families.

~Morgan

List of ancestors in the chart: Conrad Joseph Rebandt (1926-2003), Margaret Ann Bloink (1929-2009), Bernard J. Rebandt (1882-?), Adam Boniface Rebandt (1893-1980), Helen Cecilia Girsch (1905-1966), Joseph Conrad Rebandt (1850-1910), Albertina Bosman (1855-?), Joseph or George Girsch (1873-1932), Mary Bosman (1877-1931), John Bosman, Dorothyea Bosman, Mary Girsch (1824-?), Rudolph Bosman (1842-1919), Josefina Albertina Balk (1852-1915)

Family History Writing Challenge: Day 1

Word count: 726

Had a good writing session today. I'm rusty for sure with this writting business and creative writing wasn't my strong suit in school so I feel challenged. The hardest part is puting my memories onto paper in words that create the picture as I see it in my minds' eye. My memories are so precious to me that I find it hard to do them justice on the page.

Practice, practice, practice. Practice makes perfect. Practice, and editing! Ha.

Today I wrote about cherrished memories of attending church with the Rebandts at Our Lady of the Woods in Woodhaven, Michigan.

I hesitate to share, but why not, thats what this challenge is about, isn't it? Leave feedback, or share your memories too!

Building Faith through Family  2/1/2013

After my family moved away from the downriver area and stopped attending Our Lady of the Woods in Woodhaven, church was never quite the same and our attendance fell off dramatically. My grandparents, Conrad and Marge (Bloink) Rebandt and their family helped establish the church. In fact, Conrad’s brother, Ralph also started the Baptist church right next door. There is a family story that says the Baptist church still owns part of Guddith road because Ralph was stubborn and refused to sign the land over to the city when they put the road through.

Growing up, most Sunday mornings followed a similar routine. My mother would get us up if we weren’t already and make sure we picked out “church clothes” to wear. That phrase continued to indicate nice clothes throughout my life. Whenever I had an occasion to pick an outfit for, I’d ask, “does it have to be ‘church clothes?’”

Once we got to church, we always sat in the same spot. We’d dip our hand in the holy water by the door and the head down the left side of the church to the pew just behind the longest pew in the church. I remember feeling that it was as if the church members knew that that pew was where the Rebandts sit. It was like they reserved it for us. There was another family that would sit at the end of our pew on the side closer to the middle aisle, but the rest of the pew was always ours. And we usually filled it. One of the benefits of having such a close family was that we got to see each other often, and only two of Conrad and Marge’s nine children moved out of state. So, our family would gather, there in “our” pew and listen to the word of the Lord.

Once church was over, we’d head to the vestibule to chat with family members, greet the priest and see other church members as well. I remember it was in the church vestibule where my cousin Michael, got to announce to the family that he would soon be a big brother. Family news was often passed along this way, in the church vestibule. Many times, my cousins would play while the adults chatted. On sunny days, we’d head outside and then we cousins had lots more fun. Playing in front of the statue of the Mother Mary was a favorite pass time, as was climbing on the surrounding walls in typical childlike fashion until one of the adults noticed what we were doing and hollered at us to get down.

Many Sundays after church, the family would head over to Millie’s restaurant which was around the corner from church, just past Grandma and Grandpa’s house on the north side of West Road. Millie’s had a few names over the years, most of them I can’t remember any more, but the inside never seemed to change; nor did our Sunday morning routine.  Most of the time, there was a large round table up in the back of the restaurant that could accommodate our group of 10 to 15. If that table was already taken, the wait staff would drag tables together for us and we’d sit down to share breakfast. Most of us anyways, Becky never wanted breakfast. She would always order spaghetti. And she’d devour a full plate and sometimes want a more. I’ve never seen a small child consume so much spaghetti!

Once in a while, we’d head back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house after breakfast, or we’d go to their house and cook breakfast instead of going to the restaurant. Playing in the yard at Grandma and Grandpa’s was always the best. There were plenty of cousins to play with and trouble to be made. We loved the old swing set that was so big it had to have come from an old park. It was always scary when you got swinging high enough to make the front legs come up off the ground. Thank goodness we never tipped it over. There were many a time I thought we might.

The glidder on the back porch also holds many special memories. More often we got to spend quiet moments with Grandma and Grandpa here as they watched the rest of the cousins play.

 

~Morgan