family tree and i'm a huge nerd
i found a new way to waste my time this weekend when i went to this site called ancestry. com. normally the site requires a year subscription for some ridiculous amount however i am on the 2 week trial offer right now. anyways, i've always been interested in researching my family's history but i had no where to begin because most of my sources are dead or do not know much about my family's past. i have been particularly interested in looking up the weisz side of my family which is my father's mother's maiden name. supposedly it is a german-jewish last name depending on the spelling. so i've been really interested to see if my family has jewish roots or not.
old census records are the best was to learn some basic facts about your family and their way of life. the website has original census records (that were scanned) from 1850-1930. i started with these materials for my search. i found my grandmother's name under the 1920 and 30's censuses. i learned they were from slippery rock township, pa and owned a farm. I went further back to find my great grandfather, fredrick weisz's census records and learned that his mother's name was emma bratchie and that she immigrated from bern, switzerland. both of her parents were swiss born as well i later found. in a nerdy way i was super excited about this because i absolutely LOVED switzerland when i went to europe last year. it never crossed my mind that my great great grandmother was actually swiss.
fredrick's father, samuel weisz may have had a german-jewish mother with the last name, ziegler. apparently, it is from middle german meaning a "tilelayer" or "bricklayer" who is jewish. however if his mother, catherine ziegler was a practicing jew or had jewish family is unknown. i'm not sure how i could find this information. she would be my let's see...great great great grandma.
also interesting, my grandmother's mother had an irish last name, kennedy. from a family tree posted by a distant weisz relative, i found that both of my great great great grandparents of natives of ireland and immigrated early (during the early 1800s).
i can't believe this is just one small fraction of my actual family tree. it's only my grandma's untold side, for she died in 1957 due to heart problems from scarlet fever, an illness that she had as a child. so it's thrilling for me to find this uncovered side to my family that i would have never had learned considering her early death.
i've been looking through records from my mom's side of the family and the kelso side (my dad's father). what's really interesting is that the kelsos and the weiszs have stayed in western, pa for almost centuries. i guess my dad broke the tradition by moving to ohio in the 70's after his navy tenure. to this day most of my dad's family is still in western, pa.
another mystery i'm wanting to solve is the meaning of my grandma's (my mom's mother's) maiden name which is mangold. both of my great great grandparents on this side immigrated from germany in the 1880's and moved to akron, oh because distant family members already lived there. the mangold name is not a german last name which has stumped my family for years. we heard rumors that it was a jewish last name and it was suggested that its origins are northern italian or french from "mangelle." i found that william (wilhelm) mangold immigrated in 1885 however i could not find exact or even close matches for his name or year from the list of ellis island passangers. it leads me to think that (1)he arrived at a different place other than ny or (2)his last name was spelled differently. perhaps i will never know but i'm going to have my grandma (my 90 year old primary source) help me. she always seems to know more than i think but she doesnt tell much because the past is an emotional aspect for her. from what she told me, she had a very close knit family and adored her parents, especially her mother, a former flapper back in her younger years.
i'm excited but also nervous to ask her when i see her over thanksgiving.
old census records are the best was to learn some basic facts about your family and their way of life. the website has original census records (that were scanned) from 1850-1930. i started with these materials for my search. i found my grandmother's name under the 1920 and 30's censuses. i learned they were from slippery rock township, pa and owned a farm. I went further back to find my great grandfather, fredrick weisz's census records and learned that his mother's name was emma bratchie and that she immigrated from bern, switzerland. both of her parents were swiss born as well i later found. in a nerdy way i was super excited about this because i absolutely LOVED switzerland when i went to europe last year. it never crossed my mind that my great great grandmother was actually swiss.
fredrick's father, samuel weisz may have had a german-jewish mother with the last name, ziegler. apparently, it is from middle german meaning a "tilelayer" or "bricklayer" who is jewish. however if his mother, catherine ziegler was a practicing jew or had jewish family is unknown. i'm not sure how i could find this information. she would be my let's see...great great great grandma.
also interesting, my grandmother's mother had an irish last name, kennedy. from a family tree posted by a distant weisz relative, i found that both of my great great great grandparents of natives of ireland and immigrated early (during the early 1800s).
i can't believe this is just one small fraction of my actual family tree. it's only my grandma's untold side, for she died in 1957 due to heart problems from scarlet fever, an illness that she had as a child. so it's thrilling for me to find this uncovered side to my family that i would have never had learned considering her early death.
i've been looking through records from my mom's side of the family and the kelso side (my dad's father). what's really interesting is that the kelsos and the weiszs have stayed in western, pa for almost centuries. i guess my dad broke the tradition by moving to ohio in the 70's after his navy tenure. to this day most of my dad's family is still in western, pa.
another mystery i'm wanting to solve is the meaning of my grandma's (my mom's mother's) maiden name which is mangold. both of my great great grandparents on this side immigrated from germany in the 1880's and moved to akron, oh because distant family members already lived there. the mangold name is not a german last name which has stumped my family for years. we heard rumors that it was a jewish last name and it was suggested that its origins are northern italian or french from "mangelle." i found that william (wilhelm) mangold immigrated in 1885 however i could not find exact or even close matches for his name or year from the list of ellis island passangers. it leads me to think that (1)he arrived at a different place other than ny or (2)his last name was spelled differently. perhaps i will never know but i'm going to have my grandma (my 90 year old primary source) help me. she always seems to know more than i think but she doesnt tell much because the past is an emotional aspect for her. from what she told me, she had a very close knit family and adored her parents, especially her mother, a former flapper back in her younger years.
i'm excited but also nervous to ask her when i see her over thanksgiving.