Genealogy Archives - Renaissance Granddad

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My Ancestral Roots – Karn and Meyer Families

Herman Meyer in his king’s Guard unuform

So when I started my genealogical research on my family, I really new very little about what countries my ancestors came from. I knew my father’s family came from Dresden, Germany. In addition, I knew my mother’s family came from England. As to where in England I had not a clue. After years of research here’s what I’ve discovered. I’ve divided it up by Maternal and Paternal Lines. P.S. Now while I will be posting this for everybody, this post has been primarily for my children and grandchildren. But I hope others may find it interesting. According to the latest information from Ancestry my DNA comes from 6 ancestral regions. My DNA composition is as follows: Paternal Ancestry Regions Germanic Europe – 27% Sweden & DEnmark 22% Baltics 1% Maternal Ancestry Regions England & Northwestern Europe 22% Ireland 21% Scotland 7% Paternal Ancestry My father’s parents were Edward Karn and Charlotte Meyer, Here’s a little about the Karn and Meyer Families The Roots of the Karn and Meyer Families Karn – Hechler My grandfather’s parent were Henry Karn and Pauline Hechler. The Karn family came from Germany, while the Hechler family came from Switzerland. Based on my research Henry came to the US alone in 1882. While Pauline and her family arrived in 1882. They were married in New York City in April of 1887. Pauline’s parents were Daniel Hechler and Susanna Siegrist. From Daniel’s death certificate I learned he was born in Oberkulm, Switzerland. Oberkulm is a municipality in the district of Kulm,…

Emma and her Nap time Rocking Music…..

So I’m really trying to figure out ways to get more enthused about writing and doing such in a more timely manner, You see I started to do better over the summer but now with school opening my wife and I are back to being full-time babysitters for our granddaughter Emma. Emma is our fourth grandchild, She is the daughter of our daughter Elizabeth and her husband Marcus, Elizabeth is a school psychologist in a school district about 45 minutes north of her home. Consequently, we babysit from 7:00 in the morning to around 4:30, which is a long day for us! Anyway when we get home and I’m finished with dinner I’m pretty wiped out and don’t feel like writing. Anywa,y I’m going to try and write more posts wrapped around my day. Hopefully, this is the first of many. How I Rock Emma to Sleep On a typical day Emma takes a two hour nap anywhere from 11:00 am to 12 noon. Before then I usually take her for a walk around her neighborhood. We go anywhere from one to two miles. We hope that she stays awake during the walk and then goes to sleep shortly thereafter. The other day she did fall asleep on the walk. So today I kept an eye on her head and every time it started to go down, like she was going to go to sleep, I spoke to her. and her head would pop up! We actually did make the…

The Battle of the Hedgerows Ends July 18, 1944

Today in History July 18- The Battle of the Hedgerows Ends with a Family Connection While most people are familiar with D-Day June 6,1944, many myself included, don’t know much about what happened next. From July 11th to July 18th the US and German forces fought for control over the city of St. Lô. St. Lô was key to the US Army’s breaking out of Normandy into the French hinterland. Because the US forces had to fight their way through fortified hedgerows that separated field, the battles became the Battle of the Hedgerows. From HistoryNet. On the morning of July 11, 1944, the 116th Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, advanced toward Martinville Ridge, two miles east of St. Lô. The German defenders were deployed in ideal positions along a sunken road fortified with barbwire and mines…. ….Captain Charles Cawthon, 2nd Battalion executive officer, recalled the horror: “A pall of smoke was over the fields, holding in it the sweet, sickening stench of high explosives, which we had come to associate with death. The attacking riflemen, visibly shrunk in numbers, crouched behind the farthermost hedgerow while volumes of artillery, mortar, tank and machine gun fire flailed the fields beyond.”….. The Armies battled among the natural hedgerows that bordered and separated fields in the region. By July 17th the Americans troops had reached Hill 122 and were ready to advance on St Lo. From HistoryNet …Gerhardt ordered all nine of his rifle battalions to advance on St. Lô. “This is a…

My Ancestors Arrive on the Graf Waldersee

Whenever I watch “Finding Your Roots” with Henry Louis Gates I always start to think about my family tree. Tonight the show focused on immigrant ancestors. One of Jeff Goldblum’s ancestors left Ukraine, traveled to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Then he sailed to Halifax Nova Scotia He finally entered the United States from Canada. Both of my father’s family lines immigrated to the United Stares. His paternal line came from Hesse Germany and Switzerland. While his maternal line came from Dresden,Germany. My great-grandfather Henry Karn arrived in the US in 1882. He was 15 years old and by himself. My paternal greatgrandmother Pauline Hechler immigrated with her parents Daniel and Susanna and brother Gustav. My paternal grandfather was born in Delran, New Jersey. The Meyers and Doellings Come to America… My paternal grandmother Charlotte Meyer though, along with her mother and sister arrived in Philadelphia from Dresden Germany in September 8th in 1912. My great-grandfather Herman had arrived a year earlier. At the time of their arrival, my great-grandmother Helene was 32 Years old. My grandmother was 10 and her sister Irmagard was 13. Their trip was made about four months after the sinking of the Titanic. I have always heard that my greatgrandmother spent much of the trip trying to check the water temperature! On the episode of Finding Your Roots we watched, Henry Louis Gates showed Jeff Goldblum a picture of the ship his ancestors sailed on. In doing a Google search tonight I found this picture of the Graf Waldersee…

Exercising Reboot with a Surprising Soundtrack for EK!

I think it’s beyond time for an update. Just because I have not been posting, doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. This week in fact I have been very busy. Tuesday we took our daughter Elizabeth and her boyfriend Marcus to the Newark Airport. They are taking a trip to Portugal, where Marcus’ grandparents live. They will be staying with them for a few days and then they will be sightseeing for the remainder of their nine-day trip. So while the farthest I’ve ever been from home is Florida, Elizabeth has been to England and Ireland and now to Portugal. Anyway a typical 3.5 hour trip to Newark and back took 5.5 thanks to a horrible t-storm while I was driving on the NJ Turnpike and then a traffic jam getting back on the NJ Turnpike. Yesterday we babysat Zoe, while our daughter-in-law took Logan to the Paediatrician for his 7 month checkup. The little chunky guy weighed in at 22 lbs! EK Starts Exercising Again….. At the beginning of the week, I decided that it was time to start exercising again so that I can start running again. I stopped running in the beginning of June. I had some funky twinges in my left knee and I decided to rest it for a few days. Well, a few days turned into a few weeks. During that time, I also stopped doing any extended cardio exercising. The only thing I continued to do was my morning yoga. This last…

DNA and Ancestry Answer a Family’s Question

Genealogical research has never been easier. With the plethora of information available on-line at Ancestry.com and Familysearch.org, you can start to build a family tree in hours instead of years. Then, when you add in inexpensive DNA testing, you can uncover long-buried family secrets or answer family questions that cross generations. In my case, I have discovered what happened to two of my great-grandfather John Sherrington Ashton’s daughters from his first marriage.You can read about those discoveries here and here A DNA Cousin Searches for His Grandfather’s Natural Father Recently, a DNA cousin, Mike Sullivan was able to answer a decade old question that turned out to relate to my McCloskey side. His maternal grandfather was born out-of-wedlock and for years his mother and aunt have searched to discover their father’s father. Awhile back, Mike began to notice that he was getting many matches with people with the surname McCloskey in their family tree. And while the name was unfamiliar to his family, there was once a birth certificate made for his grandfather Robert Monroe that listed his mother Florence Monroe as the mother and William Monroe as the father. The only thing was Florence’s name was listed as Florence McCloskey. For years they just thought the surname was picked at random. It didn’t seem that random any more!! When Mike started his research he noticed that there was a McCloskey family living around the block from the Monroe family in Princeton, New Jersey in the 1900 Federal Census. Mike…

A Yoga Challenge Update & Logan Does Yoga!

A Yoga Challenge Update Since I started my 21-day yoga challenge, which later morphed into a 30-day yoga challenge on April 8th, I have done a yoga routine every morning except one! Most days I have done one of the three routines presented in Richard Hittleman’s Yoga – 28 Day Exercise Program. On several of days that I didn’t do a Hittleman routine, I did a Kundalini routine. The end result is that I am a lot more flexible than I was two months ago. A bonus is I also feel better overall. The bottomland is that the three Hittleman yoga routines are now a regular part of my morning exercise routine and hopefully will stay there. I am a firm believer that flexibility of your spine is an important ingredient in your overall health and well-being. Thoughts about the Seven Chakras In addition, while I have not gotten into all of the spirituality of Chakras and Chakra balancing, I do believe that there is validity in the concept of Chakras. If you are not familiar with Chakras, here are the seven Chakras…. Root chakra — base of the spine — red Sacral chakra — just below the navel — orange Solar Plexus chakra — stomach area — yellow Heart chakra — center of the chest — green Throat chakra — base of the throat — blue Third Eye chakra — forehead, just above area between the eyes — indigo Crown chakra — top of the head —…

Family History – A Look At My Direct Ashton Family Line

The Search for My Ashton Family Ancestors When my wife and I first started doing serious research on our family trees, Ancestry was in it’s infancy. One of the best places to do research was through the Church of the Latter Day Saints (LDS). The nearest LDS Research Center was in Cherry Hill, so off we went. At the time, records were not online. First you looked up what you wanted on microfiche. Then,while they had some records at the Center, others you had to order from Salt Lake City! Anyway, I started with both my parents surnames- Karn and Ashton. I had little luck with Karn, but when I searched the Ashton surname one stood out-John Sherrington Ashton! That’s my grandfather’s name. Finding the Original John Sherrington Ashton The John Sherrington Ashton listed on the microfiche turned out the be my 3rd great-grandfather. The record was the baptismal record from Holbeach in Lincolnshire England. The baptismal record listed his parents as Thomas Ashton and Mary. Here’s a copy of the record. Help from an Ashton cousin leads to John’s Grandfather James A little while later, I made contact with a Paul Ashton, who was descended from Thomas‘s brother Edward. He provided information that Thomas and Edward were two of the sons of James Ashton and Ann Done. Thomas was born in Buslingthorpe in Lincolnshire in 1791. According to information sent to me by Paul Ashton, James Ashton was renting 161 acres on the Revesby Eatate in 1791 and is…

Ashton Family History: John Sherrington Ashtons II and III

John Sherrington Ashton Jr.(1837-1864) John Sherrington Ashton III (1858-1937) So where should we start my tale about the Ashton family. How about with a quick story about the start of my genealogical research. My first experience with genealogy was when I went with my mother in law to the Trenton Archives for the first time. The only thing that I remember about that day is that I found the death certificate for my great-great grandfather. The second John. Sherrington Ashton. THe Death of John Sherrington Ashton II The family story I had always heard was he was coming off of the ferry in Beverly had a fight and someone stabbed and killed him with his own sword. When I found the death certificate that day the cause of death was listed as “knife wound in chest”. So potentially at least part of the story was true. He was stabbed and killed. Many years later, when my wife and I started our major genealogy research, I discovered another tidbit about his death. Beverly Monument Cemetery records show John was originally buried in the Larzalere cemetery in Bensalem Pennsylvania. Based on that fact I believe it’s logical to think that he was killed in Pennsylvania. That fact may support the story, he was killed while getting off of Dunks ferry. While I have searched I have never been able to find any newspaper articles about John’s death. John and New Jersey’s 23rd Regiment John was twenty-seven at the time of his death. During the Civil war, he…