Saturday Stumble-Upon: It's a Small World After All

Since I started this blog back in July, I have heard from some cousins again and have also been in communication with a few new cousins.

Shari (Searls) Adair, a cousin in the Glenn family line who I've been in contact with for several years now, was surprised to learn that she knew two other sides of my family!  She was in school and 4H with my grandma Sharon (Jorenby) Luze. When the families lived in the Lake Campbell area, the Searls farm and the Jorenby farm were adjacent to each other. Shari's family had also lived near Lowell Workman in Eureka township.

Now with the realization that the cousins from the east (Glenns from Aurora) knew the cousins from the southwest (Jorenbys from the Lake Campbell area) and the cousins from the north (Workmans in Eureka township), I began to wonder how far apart these families really were.  So I pulled up Google Maps and started mapping the childhood homes of my great-grandparents.  Here's the result:

View It's A Small World - family beginnings in a larger map

Not bad!  Brookings is almost the center point of all of their childhood homes.  I'm willing to bet that at some point or another, the families all crossed paths in Brookings.  Moral of the story: It's a small world after all!

Saturday's Stumble Upon - Photographer Links

In the collection of Workman-Crapser photos from Grandma Leola, there are several pictures that have photographers' marks.   In theory these marks should help us discover from which time frame the picture might be.  Unfortunately, this assumes you know when each photographer was in business.  I hadn't found a great reference for that information until this past week when I stumbled upon two references:

• Minnesota Historical Society's Directory of Minnesota Photographers  http://www.mnhs.org/people/photographers/
• They Captured the Moment: Dakotas Photographers 1853 – 1920 by Robert Kolbe with Brian Bade. http://www.agmuseum.com/dakotahistorybooks.html

Another neat find this week relates to the Sterling Methodist Church, from which the Workman family line has many connections.  It seems as though the work of one former pastor, Rev. Bonney, is posted on the USGenWebsArchive.  Rev. Bonney's work:

• Baptisms - http://files.usgwarchives.org/sd/church/methodist/bonneybap.txt
• Marriages - http://files.usgwarchives.org/sd/church/methodist/bonneymarriage.txt
• Brides index - http://files.usgwarchives.org/sd/church/methodist/bonneym-br.txt

In the list of marriages by Rev Bonney, it mentions that he "assisted Homer Schautz - a camera exploded".  Interestingly enough, we have a photo in our Workman-Crapser collection with the initials "H.W.S."  I wonder if this photo of a young boy and two dogs was taken by Homer Schautz.

Saturday Stumble-upon

The last few weeks I have stumbled upon some new information.

Early in July I went out to cousin Vida's and scanned a bunch of Workman family pictures.  There are still many more photos and bits of information to scan and collect out at Vida's farm.

Then, another Workman cousin, Claire, stumbled upon my website, Penny's Genealogy Pages. Claire in turn sent me copies of several articles on a major explosion at a Edward Workman house in Watertown, New York in 1922.  The explosion, which killed 8 children and caused damaged for two blocks in every direction, was caused by unexploded artillery shell.  Claire also sent a letter that was written by Philip Workman to his sister Barbara (Workman) Schrode.   I'll be returning the favor and sending Claire some information.

Today, while catching up on some genealogy blogs, I learned of a neat show on the History Channel called "How the States Got Their Shapes" based on a book by Mark Stein.  The description of the show intrigued me.  Unfortunately, it didn't look like the show was going to be re-shown on the History Channel any time soon. Then I discovered the show in pieces on YouTube.  I watched all the pieces and learned (maybe re-discovered is a better term) that our state borders were etched out based on natural resources, transportation/commerce, technology, and equality.    Here's the first piece of How the States Got Their Shapes.



Thank you, Claire, Vida and the genealogy blogs, for my recent stumble-upons!!