2022 Week #4 Curious

One of the most frustrating things about genealogy is the fact that almost all of the people that we are looking into have passed away and when they go they take their stories with them. Sometimes you get lucky and you find photos, stories written in books, or have living relatives that can still remember those generations back and can fill in the gaps. But often times the names in our family trees are just that. Names, birth and death dates, and maybe a location of where they were born and died. 

But I am often so curious to know what were these people like. Were they kind or mean, were they talented at something, what were their beliefs, what was their favorite foods, did they have enough food, what were there hopes and dreams. Another thing that I think about sometimes is what would they think about me? Their blood runs through my veins and because of them I exist. I wonder if they ever thought about what their future great great great grandchildren were doing? I wish I could just sit and have a conversation with so many of them. 

To narrow it down here are some of the things that I think about or are puzzling related to certain relatives.

• The first is the parentage of my 4x great grandfather William Porter Severs. There are a few stories on ancestry that say that his real father was a man by the name of George Kincaid. One story says that his mother was married to a George Kincade and he died before William was born then she married a man name Severs and William took his last name. Another story said that Williams mother worked for George Kincade's family and he was married with children and a child resulted  while she worked for him. When he was a child they didn't have the detailed census records so you can't see who was living where and maybe piece it together. 
  
  

  

  William Porter Severs & his wife Elizabeth 

• Another person I think about a lot is another 4x great grandfather. I've done quite a bit of research on him and he lead an interesting life you can read about him in my post here. Since I've done so much research on him I feel a greater connection to him and always wondered what he looked like. A few years ago I came across photos of his sons and can't help but think he probably looks like them. Another puzzle relating to his wife my 4x great grandmother is where she was buried. He has a beautiful stone which I've seen but she passed 17 years before he did and there's no record of where she is buried. 
  
  

  

  Daniel Hutchison Jr. 

  

  James Hutchison 

Andrew Jackson Hutchison

• I'm lucky enough to have very deep roots on both sides of my family but a few closer generations migrated to the US and I often wondered what spurred them to come here. 
• My 2x great grandparents Andrew & Louisa Anderson. Looking online in 1887 (the year Andrew came to the US) 46,000 Swedish immigrants came to the US. In Sweden from 1750-1850 the population doubled and tillable land became very scarce. Since Andrew was a farmer I'm wondering if that's what pushed him to come to America. 
•  Another set of 2x great grandparents Ferdinand & Elizabeth Gaetz came from Russia to Canada in 1888 & 1900. At this time in Russia the country was very impoverished and Millions of Russians left for America and Canada. I wonder what trials my ancestors were facing that forced them across the world. 
• My 3x great grandparents Wilhelm & Beatrice Ertel came to the US around 1880. That was another heavy year for immigration out of Germany with around 1.5 million Germans leaving.  

These are just a few of the many curiosities I have with my genealogy research. But I think that that curiosity keeps us interested in genealogy and we enjoy the hunt. If it were all easy and handed to us on a silver platter I don't think many would be as interested. Often times the journey to discovery is sometimes the best part!