Thursday, April 18, 2013

Lovely spring day, and my Family Tree research!

Oh mid April, you are not here yet, are you? With the sleet, freezing rains, snow and ice on the ground, and a high of 38 degrees? Well okay, spring is here at least calendar wise.

I have been hanging out at home with my son today, he is watching Scooby Doo and before he was playing with his toys on the living room floor. And guess what I found today!

I found the names of some of my ancestors on my maternal grandmother's side, going back to the 1820's! How cool is that?

Here are the names. First of all, there's my mom, Debbie. She is still alive,  so I won't give her last name, she has no computer or Facebook page of her own, still I will protect her privacy. Everyone else listed here on my family tree is deceased:

My maternal grandmother: Lois Rita McBride. (Died in a tragic car accident in 1971, so I never knew her. Her daughters, ages 12 and 15 died along with her. They were my aunts, who I never got to know.)

Maternal great grandparents: Jeanette Lydia (Tong) McBride, Joseph Michael McBride.

 (I was very close to Grandma Jeanette as a kid. I spent many weekends staying with her in her apartment building in Ashland WI. She was a bit eccentric, but she liked to talk and she spoiled me when I was at her house. We used to go out for ice cream a lot, which made me tolerant of her eccentricities.)

Maternal gg grandparents: James Ranselar Tong and Mary Alice (Conlon) Tong,
                                           Bernard McBride and Katherine Skahan McBride.

Maternal ggg grandparents: Ben Conlon, (born in Canada) Job Tong (from Yorkshire, England) and  
                                              Mary (Vickerman) Tong.
                                              Owen McBride (from Ireland) and Rosele (Carragher) McBride,
                                              Michael Skahan (born in 1820!) and Bridget (Gill) Skahan.

And that is what I was able to find on Ancestry.com today! Now that is just the lineage from my great grandma Jeanette, who I was close to growing up in Ashland, WI. She died in 1990, and her sister, my great aunt Fern, who I was also very close to growing up (she and her husband would take me camping in her Coachman camper! Loved her!) died in 2002 at age 90.

This was really interesting! To find an ancestor going back to a birth year of 1820 was fascinating, and it seems like my family on this side is Irish and English, which I knew. The surname "Skahan" is very intriguing, it doesn't seem like an Irish or English surname, it may be Scandinavian. Which would be so neat, since many of my friends and people in my area I grew up in were Scandinavian, and I didn't think I was. (which was perfectly okay because Lutefisk would never be my thing...)

On my father's side, his surname is Hunt, which is such a common name it is impossible to find anything. I googled the name Hunt, his dad's first name, and the city of Batavia, Illinois, but there was nothing I could find, and nothing on Ancestry.com.

Finding the names of some of my ancestors is certainly fun, and surprisingly easy so far. I should look up my husbands farther back, but he has most of his written down already. One of his paternal great grandparents was from Croatia, which was interesting for him to find out!





5 comments:

  1. Hi, We are cousins (after a fashion) My Ggrandmother was an O'Donnell, her mother was Catherine McBride (Bride). She had an older brother, Bernard McBride who married Katherine Skeahan in Wisconsin. Their father was Owen McBride. Some of the McBride's changed their name to Bride when they lived in New York. My Aunt Rita told me it was due to the fact they wouldn't be as singled out as being Irish. I have some death information on Rose (Caragher) and Owen McBride, also the marriage information on Bernard and Katherine McBride. My email is vickirobo@gmail.com if you want to get in touch.

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  2. Hi! Nice to meet you, Vicki! I will check out your blog!

    Julie

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  4. Hello! Thanks for sharing. James Ranselar Tong is my great great uncle, you mother is my third cousin, which would make you my third cousin once removed.

    I really appreciate your narrative; I used ancestry as a good source as well. I just want to clarify one point; I believe ancestry.com lists Lydia Elvira Marshall as Job Tong's spouse; Mary Vickerman (Tong) is Job's mother who married James Tong, Job's father. To make things a bit more confusing, Job also had a daughter, and named her Mary Vickerman (1872-1946).

    If you can confirm that Lydia Elvira Marshall is your great-great-great grandmother, then you'll be able to go a bit farther back...to her parents, Rensseler Marshall (1799-1862), and Phoebe Eaton (1804-1885). Phoebe's parents being Henry and Sarah Eaton. Henry Eaton's father being Peter Eaton.

    https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/job-tong_24387442

    Cheers!

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    1. Thank you for the comment and information! I didn't notice this until today, haven't paid attention to this blog lately. I'm going to renew my ancestry.com membership and keep researching.
      Many thanks, JK!

      Your relative,
      Julie :)

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