The Harrises of Hidlay: Part 2
It’s sometimes difficult for me to remember how I got started on some of my genealogical work from decades ago. I know that I did very little work on other branches of the family...
Category: Family
Mock Shotgun Weddings
As my father wrote about last week, we recently received a collection of photographs from the Harris family. The Harrises intermarried with the Hagenbuchs and the two families attended Hidlay Lutheran Church in Columbia...
The Harrises of Hidlay: Part 1
On February 10, 2015, I wrote an article about my great great grandfather’s brother and his family. Samuel Hagenbuch was born in 1806 and lived on what became a six generation family farm in...
Tracing the Descendants of John Ruckle Hagenbuch
Obituaries are a rich source of genealogical information, and online tools have made it easier than ever to locate these. A useful obituary includes the name of the deceased, their birth and death dates,...
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
You may be reading this the day after Christmas. Most people are still surrounded by some wrapping paper scraps, gifts sticking out of boxes, and the many, many decorations that adorn most houses at...
Our Family’s First Christmas Gift in America
The further we go back in time, the more difficult it is to tell the story of our Hagenbuch family. Precious little information remains from early 1700s when our ancestor, Andreas Hagenbuch (b. 1715),...
Tell Them the Story
As a warning to our readers, this article describes a suicide in the early 20th century. While writing my last article about November dates, I was looking through the photo archives for images of...
Hagenbuch’s Meat Market of Bowmanstown
I’m always amazed by the family-related ephemera that appears on eBay: an old family photo, a receipt printer, and a Fraktur to name a few. Recently I found another curious item—a small, promotional screwdriver....
Remember, Remember, the Days of November
Recently, Linda and I attended a birthday party for our four-year-old grandson, William. Not long after this, we were treated to a birthday meal for my nephew, Tom Huffman, who was born on November...
Family Thanksgiving News of Yore
With Thanksgiving almost upon us, I began to wonder about what news I might find about Hagenbuchs celebrating the holiday during earlier times. What I found did not disappoint and even led to the...
