The Other Corner

    by Nancy Gertner (Feb 2001)

Some really amazing information can be found via the Internet when one is doing family history research.  Just for fun, let’s turn off the computer and get out of the corner and see what we can find using more old fashioned research methods.  For tools, gloves, a shovel, and an automobile are helpful.

Before Ancestry.com added U.S. census records to their many data bases, I was interested in looking at the records, so I got in my car and drove to the Historical Society in Cottonwood County, where my great-grandparents settled.  To my great delight, I discovered the 1885 Minnesota State Census for Rosehill Township was in the handwriting of my great-grandfather John August Jahnke.  The last family he listed on the report was the family of my great-grandfather Friedrich Gertner.  Mrs. G, Elisabeth, was listed as "Liza," which I interpreted as a familiarity none of the other census assessors had achieved with the Gertner family.  The youngest children in these families in the 1885 census, Sophia and Karl Herman, were united in marriage in 1907 in the Rosehill Evangelical Lutheran Church founded by their fathers.

Several museum visits were required to view microfilms of all the census reports through 1920.  On my last visit, one of the staff members surprised me with a presentation of four boxes.  The contents were from the estates of my great-grandparents and great aunts and great uncle, and they’d been stored in the house of my late uncle, who was married to the museum employee’s aunt.  The contents of the boxes included great-grandfather’s naturalization papers from 1875, a leather wallet he’d made to carry them in (he was trained as a shoemaker in the old country), the prayer book and hymnbook that great-grandmother brought with her from the old country in 1866 and protected from the Great Chicago Fire, the family bible, photos, confirmation certificates, registration papers of Duroc-Hampshire boar pigs, and numerous other sentimental treasures.  These treasures would probably never have come into my possession if I had viewed the census microfilms at the LDS Library near my home instead of driving to the ancestral county.

Motivated by these finds, and my new knowledge of the township history, and inspiration from a newspaper article in the Cottonwood County Citizen, I drove up the half-mile driveway of my great-great-grandparent’s homestead on a thawing January day in the new Millennium.  It must have surely been a warm summer day when the ancestors picked the lakeview location for their house and barn 125 years ago.  How they ever navigated that driveway without a snowblower, I’ll never know.  My bravery to drive up the soft driveway was rewarded with the sight of something I’ve never seen before:  an extract, written by the pastor of the Lutheran Church at Grunau, containing the marriage date of my great-great-grandparents, and the baptismal dates of their children.  The document contained a raised seal and a blue seal, and was dated 3 April 1875.  Katherina Deutschmann and Peter Hochbaum and their seven children arrived in America via the SS CIMBRIA at New York Harbor in August 1875, along with four of Katharina's siblings and their families.  The Hochbaum Homestead is now in the fourth generation, owned by my second cousin once removed.

These finds lead me to believe the Internet is still a good research tool, but that "getting out of the corner" can lead to some truly amazing treasures.  I’ve printed out some great data found via the Internet, but the printer has never created original 1875 naturalization papers, or a handmade leather pouch.  My newfound treasures almost compensate for my failure to visit the birthplace of my grandmother before the buildings were razed just a few months ago.  So get out and dig ­ some of those treasures may not be there next month.  My computer is still in the corner, and it’s collecting a little dust while I archive my vintage photos and other treasures.