Moving on to my great-grandma's side........

In the last couple weeks I've posted about my great-grandpa's parents.  I now want to write about my great-grandma's parents.  As I posted before, my great-grandma Doris Colson was raised by George and Anna (Buskirk) Colson but born to Charles and Freda (Johnson) Perkins.  Charles Ellsworth Perkins was born 15 Sep 1880 at Ashland MI.  The record states it's Muskegon Co but Ashland is currently in Newaygo Co so I'm not sure which is correct.  He was the 3rd of 8 children to Clarence Perkins and Sarah Etta Lambertson.  I've blogged several times about Clarence and am not positive how many 1/2 siblings Charles had but I know of at least 3. 

Record #517 on the bottom

Charles married Freda Maria Johnson 5 Apr 1900 at Fremont, Newaygo Co MI.  I'll blog about Freda next.

Charles and Freda had 2 children:
Milo R Perkins born 24 Jun 1901 in Newaygo Co MI, died 17 Jan 1964 at Lansing, Ingham Co MI.
Doris Lydia - my great grandmother.

Freda passed away 18 Mar 1904 at Ashland, Newaygo Co MI, leaving Charles with an almost 3 year old son and a 6 month old daughter.  As I stated in my blog about Doris, Charles moved to Lansing with Milo but gave Doris to the Colson family.  I do not know why Charles moved to Lansing or why he kept Milo but not Doris.

Charles remarried 7 Aug 1906 at Grand Rapids, Kent Co MI to Bertha Gertrude Edwards (1875-1943).  During my talks with my great-grandma she mentioned that her dad had married "Gertrude" (Bertha appears to have gone by Gertrude on some records).

Record #182, bottom, 1st hand-written entry

I only have one confirmed picture of Charles and Bertha and I've pondered whether or not to post it but decided that I will.  I'm not a fan of the picture but we're blogging about the lives of these people and sugar-coating parts of it doesn't accurately portray anything does it?  I got this picture during the visit that I talked about in the blog about Clarence Perkins.  His sister Eva's granddaughter Charlene Zufelt Henry (1933-2017) put a bunch of pictures on the table for my grandma and I and when this one hit the table, my grandma asked "who on earth is that", to which Charlene replied "that's your grandfather Charles Perkins".  My grandma's jaw then hit the table.  She of course knew nothing about this, as I'm sure her mother didn't.  All I can say about the photo is that it was a different time, with a lot of ignorance going on.  I hate to think he spent his entire life like this but I'll never know.

Charles' WWI draft card from 12 Sep 1918 lists him as doing machine repair for the Michigan Screw Company in Lansing MI, listing his wife Gertrude as his nearest relative.  Interestingly he lists 17 Sep as his birthdate, instead of the 15 Sep listed on his birth record.  He does the same on his card for WWII so perhaps the birth record is wrong?

Charles and Bertha had a 20 year marriage, until their divorce 4 Oct 1926 in Ingham Co MI.

I'll obviously never know what led to their divorce but I always speculate that there was an outside interference when the next marriage takes place so quickly after the divorce, as was the case when Charles married Anceretta (Walker) Slingerland 12 Nov 1926 at Lansing.  I'm guessing that he didn't get over his previous marriage in 5 weeks.

I have a couple of photos of Charles with Anceretta.  She was referred to as Anna on one of them so perhaps she used that as a nickname.

In his WWII registration he lists the person that will "always know his address" as Harvey Hosmer (name is butchered on the card), his sister Nellie's husband.  I'm not sure why he didn't list Anceretta as they remained married until his death.  He's working for the "Oldsmobile Div. of G.M.C."  His obituary also lists that that was his employer.

Charles passed away 8 Aug 1945 at Delhi Townhip, Ingham Co MI of acute myocarditis.  He was laid to rest at Deepdale Memorial Park in Delta Township, Eaton Co MI.  Anceretta lived as his widow for 34 years before passing away in 1979 and is buried with Charles.  The daughter Ruth listed in his obituary is actually a stepdaughter.

Lansing State Journal 9 Aug 1945

My great-grandma had 2 photos of Charles in her photo albums, and they are both better photos than the ones I posted above.  She had referred to him as a "motorman" and I wasn't sure what that meant but given the one photo I'm guessing he drove a trolley for awhile.  He looks considerably younger in that photo than any of the others.  I wish we could solve the mystery of why he was so willing to give up my great-grandmother, but not her brother.  There are a lot of questions with this particular ancestor that went to the grave a long time ago and will never be answered. 

I caved.....and another little nugget found.

Yeah yeah yeah......I said I was done for awhile and taking a break and I was truthful about that.  I was struggling though because as I was going through my files and moving things around, I was having to refer to my tree and I kept seeing those danged little shaky leafs!  I got an email about new subscribers getting 50% off a subscription and using a friend's suggestion I called and they honored the discount for me too.  That means I'm good for 6 more months but it doesn't mean I'm going to back to what I had been doing.  I am rather enjoying where I'm at with my searches.  I've gotten all of my digital photos organized and have cleaned up my entire genealogy folder.  I got rid of iCloud because it wasn't working like it was supposed to (although ironically after I deleted some stuff from it the 30 missing gigs of information suddenly appeared - too late Apple).  I am using Google Drive and it is AMAZING!  $2.99/month for 200 gigs and the file structure is just like windows.  It's stupid easy to drag and drop files where I want them.......I love it.  I'm typing this on a laptop I know is actively dying but I'm doing so with the knowledge that all of my files are safely backed up on a thumb drive in my safe and in the cloud, unlike my last hard drive failure.

So what nugget did I find?  I've written a lot about my Comstock ancestry and wrote an entire blog post about my 3rd great-grandmother Barbara Harris Comstock.  In there I referenced that I'd found that she married George Tibbett 28 Feb 1882, almost 8 years after the death of her husband David Barkley Comstock.

Bottom lines (record #170)

I wrote in that previous blog that I could find no record of them together after the marriage, which struck me as odd given that I know where she was between then and her death.  I was poking around at genealogybank.com a few nights ago and there it was, in the Grand Rapids Evening Leader 28 Feb 1884 (exactly 2 years after they married) they divorced.

Thankfully the article is incorrect in stating that she resumed her maiden name of Comstock, since her maiden name was actually Harris.  I wouldn't have found this if they hadn't messed up.

Interestingly, I also found mention of a lawsuit that Barbara was involved in.  There were quite a few mentions of legal filings and then this really lengthy article about her winning her lawsuit in the Grand Rapids Evening Leader 07 Apr 1881.  You will have to zoom in on this to read it but I tried it with my laptop and it does work.

What was particularly interesting to me about this article is that a cousin in California sent me a bunch of photos and in them was this picture of houses that David Barkley Comstock allegedly built.  The article lists clues to a possible location.  All in all, I'm glad I went back through and scoured those papers more.

More that my great-grandfather (probably) didn't know

Last post I wrote about my great-grandpa's father and all the information I'd been able to find that I suspect he didn't know.  In this writing I'll share what I've found about his mother, Margaret Cook.

Margaret was born Margritha Kuis 20 Aug 1859 at Uithuizen, Groningen Netherlands, the illegitimate daughter of Johanna Kuis (1834-1907).  She was the 2nd illegitimate child born to Johanna, as their was a brother Hindrik born 28 Dec 1857, who died 8 Oct 1860 (both at Uithuizen).

Margaret's birth

Marriage that legitimized her birth.

Johanna married Bernardus Henderikus Kock 2 Nov 1859 at Uithuizen, and the marriage record states that it legitimized 2 children.  They had 10 additional children:

Hendrikus 1 Jul-9 Jul 1862 at Usquert
Hinderikus 13 Jun-18 Jun 1863 at Usquert
Gezina 15 Jul 1864-???, born at Usquert
Henricus 4 Jul 1867-??? born at Grand Rapids, Kent Co MI (as are the remainder of the children)
Lucinda 1868-Jul 1868 (at this point the family name is recorded as Cook)
Henry 1868-4 Jul 1868
Henry Aug 1868-3 May 1870
Bertram Sep 1869-29 Jun 1870
Henry 7 Apr 1872-28 Mar 1873
Catherine 21 Feb 1875-2 Dec 1942 - she married Louis "Luke" Denhof, son of Nicolaas' brother Jacob.

As you can see, Bernardus and Johanna had a hard time keeping their children alive.  The records for these children are spotty and most were obtained from the records of St. Andrews Catholic Church in Grand Rapids by another Denhof cousin.

As I wrote in my last blog, Margaret married Nicolaas Denhof 5 Nov 1877 at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Wright Township, Ottawa Co MI.  After his death in 1917 she remained widowed, heading the household with her younger children in 1920 and living with her son Peter and his family in 1930.

1920 census -I have no idea who the boarder is with the family.

1930 census with son Peter and his family

I have asked my grandma (who was just shy of 10 when Margaret passed away 5 Oct 1937 at Conklin MI) about her recollections of Margaret and she only recalls visiting her aunt "Rick" (Henrietta Denhof Torrey) on Spencer St NE (Grand Rapids) and seeing Margaret on the front porch using a Singer sewing machine.  Given my relationship with my grandparents I find it hard to fathom that that's all she remembers BUT I have to remember that she was born to the youngest child (her dad was an uncle to several people at birth) and that Margaret had 33 living grandchildren and 25 living great-grandchildren at the time of her death (in spite of her inaccurate obituary).  She had already buried 4 grandchildren and a great-grandchild as well.  To put it in perspective, my grandma only had 3 grandchildren.

Margaret passed away of chronic myocarditis and was laid to rest beside her husband and near her mother at the St. Francis Xavier church cemetery.

I wish I had more photos of the Denhof family, but was told by one Margaret's grandsons that the old farmhouse burned down and took the photos with it.  I do have a few scant photos of Margaret, all from around the same time frame.

The family picture is her and all her children, presumably on her 69th birthday (her clothing/appearance match that of the photo that has the 69th birthday sign).  The woman in the photos with her is her sister Catherine Cook Denhof.  My great grandpa Nicholas is seated in the front of the family photo, with a deck of cards against his shoe (he loved cards).

Stuff my great-grandpa probably didn't know

As I wrote in my first blog, my great-grandpa's refusal to answer my questions is what fueled my genealogy interest, resulting in 26 years worth of research.  Now that I'm changing directions in my "goals" I thought I'd start with what I was able to find about his parents.  I'll start with his father Nicolaas Denhof.

Nicolaas was born 30 Apr 1854 at Uithuizen, Groningen Netherlands, the 7th of 9 children to Jacobus Jacobs Denhof (1819-1896) and Lammina van Heuvelen (1817-1889).  I paid a researcher in 2006 to research this family and in his notes he wrote "in 1863, Lammina went to a hospital for the mentally insane in Delft. She died there on 6 October 1889."  There is no documentation in the file he sent me but I have no reason to doubt the validity of this.  Jacobus remarried a year after her death to Elizabeth ten Boer (1841-1928).  He also noted that the family was Roman Catholic.  Interestingly, although my great-grandpa took great pride in being Dutch, both of his grandfathers list Germany as their place of birth in their records.

Nicolaas' siblings included:

Jacob 1841-1910 - came to America in 1866, coming to Grand Rapids MI before settling in Chester Township, Ottawa Co MI (Nicolaas followed him here).  Was married to Margaret Drieborg.
Klaas 1843-1847
Jan 1844-1869 - also came to America in 1869, also to Grand Rapids but died there 12 Mar 1869.
Albertus 1846-1848
Bernardus 1848-1860
Trientje 1851-1909 - married Hans Diemers Veenstra and had 7 children in Uithuizen but ends up in Buenos Aires Argentina prior to the birth of their last daughter Paulina in 1892.  Trientje died as Catalina Fenstra and her husband as Juan Fenstra.
Willem Guillelmus Fredericus 1857-???? - appears to have followed his sister to Buenos Aires.  He married Geessiena Nieman and had 2 children at Uithuizen before having a son Federico in 1892 in Argentina.  In census records Geessiena is married to Federico Stoffel by the birth of their daughter Cherina in 1894 so I'm guessing Willem is deceased by then.
Petrus Jacobus Frederikus - 1858-1883 (never married).

Nicolaas left the Netherlands, and came to America via Liverpool on the "SS Nevada", arriving in America May 1873.

This is the manifest from when Nicolaas left the Netherlands.  Interesting that Jan Kuis is with him - more on that in a bit.........

 This is the manifest that was turned in in New York.  The snippet with Nicolaas' name gives no further useful information.

So why did Nicolaas leave the Netherlands?  I don't have any definitive proof but I have to guess it's related to this snippet below:

1119. Amongst others Nicolaas Denhof was mentioned in the “Politieblad”, a kind of paper, which was sent to the police stations as a kind of “wanted” paper.

Mentioned he was living in Uithuizen and probably left for North America.

He was sentenced for 3 days imprisonment or paying 25 guilders because  he didn’t show up for his military service.

Still wanted in 1875 and 1878.

It's interesting that Nicolaas fled the Netherlands to avoid a 3 day imprisonment and even more interesting that his brother Willem appears to have fled to Argentina for a petty issue as well:

Wilhelmus Fredericus Gulielmus Denhoff.

Inprisoned in (hard to translate) a kind of prison in which mostly poor people are placed for little crimes. I guess just want to put them away.

Willem was deserted the 5^th of July 1888 and was wanted. Description: farmhand, length 1 meter, 74 centimeters, face: round, hair, blond, nose and mouth ordinary, chin round

Nicolaas married Margretha "Margaret" Cook 5 Nov 1877 at Wright Township, Ottawa County MI.  I have misplaced that marriage record so will have to see about getting another copy.  I do know that the marriage was found in the parish records only, not at the county clerk.  Remember Jan Kuis from that ship log that was with Nicolaas?  His sister Johanna (Kuis) Cook was Margaret's mother.  I'm only speculating at this point but I'd bet that's how they were introduced.  I'll blog about Margaret next.

On Feb 4, 1888 Nicolaas became a naturalized citizen in the Kent County Circuit Court at Grand Rapids:

Nicolaas and Margaret settled in Chester Township and attended St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, which his brother Jacob's family was one of the founding families of.  Nicolaas was a farmer and lived the typical farmer life of the day.  Between 1878-1901 the he and Margaret had 10 children, my great-grandfather Nicholas being the youngest.  

1880 Chester Twp - living next door to Margaret's parents Bernardus and Johanna (Kuis) Cook

1900 Chester Twp - living next door to Ida (Cook) VanderLaan, 1st cousin of Margaret

1910 Chester Twp (not in order due to split pages)

I don't know much about Nicolaas but the little bit that my grandma's brother told me stands in stark contrast to what his obituary tells about him.  From what I was told he drank quite a bit and could have a terrible temper, so bad that my great-grandpa and his brother Pete buried his pistol somewhere on the farm to keep it away from him.

Nicolaas passed away 4 Sep 1917 at his home in Chester of carcinoma of the liver and was laid to rest in the church cemetery at St. Francis Xavier.

Nicolaas was even tough in his will, leaving everything to his wife until her death, at which time the children were to split everything unless of course, she had the gall to remarry (instead of spending her last 20 years as a widow like she did) then everything was to go straight to the children.  I guess this wasn't that uncommon back then so perhaps I'm judging the time he lived in more than his words.  I'm thankful to live in an age where women aren't treated like this.

Where has the time gone (and have I lost my mind)?

Well well well.....here I am again with another year between posts.  I'm rather disappointed in my blogging prowess.  I'm not even sure if anyone will see my posts anymore but I still want to blog so I will try to do better.  My biggest issue has been my working with my tree at ancestry.com.  It seems that every time I'm on my laptop I find myself working on that instead of pretty much anything else.  How big of a problem was that?  In my very first blog post (13 days shy of 5 years ago) I wrote that I had been working on my tree for 22 years and had 44,993 people in my tree.  Where am I today, 5 years later?

Yep, in the last 5 years I've added 62,902 people to my tree.  I've also now sourced/added almost a quarter of a million records from ancestry's little "shaky" leafs.  When I started blogging I wasn't using that ancestry feature so that's 50k/year that I've matched up.  This has obviously kept me quite busy.  So why am I on here posting tonight?

Xfinity sent me an iPad last month as part of a promo.  I'm not an Apple guy but I wanted a tablet so I thought I'd give it a shot.  I've explored the iCloud and decided that is a pretty good deal and would be great for allowing me to make my genealogy information mobile.  I didn't want to move my genealogy folder into the iCloud until I finished organizing my files so I decided to let my ancestry.com and newspapers.com subscriptions lapse so that I could accomplish that.  This is where I think I may have lost my mind........

I had almost 1000 files (obits, death certificates etc) on my laptop that needed to be renamed and sorted.  I got that done and then found a folder that I forgot about on my thumb drive that had almost 1700 more files that needed to be renamed/sorted.  I opened a few and I didn't even recognize the names.  I have been feeling overwhelmed by how large this project is and this put me over the edge.  I decided that most of these files I've downloaded are available digitally and that all of this renaming and sorting is just draining and is sucking the joy out of working on my tree.  So I started deleting..........

I deleted all birth/marriage/death records that weren't for my DIRECT ancestors or their siblings.  I went into my census records file and did the same thing (deleted 5 gigs worth of data in this folder alone).  I then went into my obituaries folder and I have over 7000 files in there - 7000!  I started doing the same thing there and hope to finish that tomorrow.  I realize that the digital files aren't guaranteed to be there forever, let alone tomorrow but I also realize that almost all of the files in these folders are files that I downloaded, labeled and then never opened again (and probably never will).  I also know where to find them if I decide I need them again someday.  

I'm a big proponent of doing the ancillary lines.  My last blog post pointed to a very distant DNA match that may have helped solve a brick wall but I'm tired and I need a break.  I want to get back to my main lines and I think this is the start I need to get me there.  I plan to blog a lot more as part of this process.  Wish me luck!