A little more about me (...and it's probably about time)

I have for so long used the same old, short little blurb about how I caught the genealogy bug. 

I enjoy family history in my spare time. This hobby of mine began with a history class assignment in 1999 and the discovery that my grandparents and great-grandparents had all worked with their family trees. I took their research and expanded it using the web.

After reading several other genealogy blogs, I've learned a bit about those other bloggers that helps me understand where they're coming from and what they have to offer.  My little blurb doesn't offer any great insight or wisdom.  So I offer this updated About Me:

I caught the genealogy bug in 1999 during a high school history class assignment.  Yep, that makes me one of the younger genealogists.  But I come from a family that has a knack for history.  In my younger days my family re-enacted the Civil War era and my dad, uncle and some cousins still re-enact various time periods.  That was all fun, but as I got older I also got busy with school, extra-curricular activities and work. 

It was during that history class assignment where I rediscovered that I really did enjoy history.  I started asking grandparents for the required information and learned that most of my grandparents and great-grandparents had been collectors of family history.  I had within my reach names, dates, pictures, news clippings ... all the good genealogy stuff.  This wasn't enough for me, I needed to organize it on the computer ... 'cuz I can be pretty handy with a computer.  So I bought software to start my family tree and started plugging in all the data.  Then I discovered the plethora of online sources including Ancestry.com, Rootsweb.com, and Cyndi's List of references.  One thing led to another and I caught the genealogy bug.

Then I graduated from high school and went on to get a degree in Information Technology.  This led me into my current full-time position as an "Enterprise Content Librarian", which in English just means that I figure out what documents the company is storing and what data needs to be stored with those documents to ensure they can be found again.  It was this position that made me realize that I hadn't really taken the time to make the information in my family history collection easily found again.  Thus came the web site "Penny's Genealogy Pages" and my blog "Penny's Genes".

I think that is much better and offers more insight on the road that got me here.

1955 Fire at the Jorenby Farm

I was recently given a news tidbit from the Brookings Register dated November 6, 2010.  The article "Memories from Brookings Past", notes:

55 years ago 1955
... The farm home of Mrs. Stella Jorenby on the west side of Lake Campbell was destroyed by fire.  ...

The intersting part of this is that cousin Shari, from the Laabs side of my family, recently mentioned this fire at the farm.  Here's what Shari remembers:

When [Stella] first moved to the Lake Campbell farm, the house was an old structure that had once served as a hotel and post office for the town of Lake City, a town that did not survive. Her house was the last remnant of the town, though the farmhouse I lived in had an addition that was said to have come from a house in Lake City. Sometime in the mid fifties, the Jorenbys installed an oil or gas furnace in the basement. The sons were doing the work themselves and unfortunately did not vent the furnace. The first time it was fired up, it burned the house down in the middle of the night. They replaced the house with a prefab ranch house that was not completed on the inside. They spent many years completing that house.

Shari's brother Doug remembered the fire a little differently:

According to [Doug] the fire occurred in the daytime, and the Brookings fire truck drove into our yard looking for their farm. Although our farms abutted, they were not connected by a road, so the firetruck had to go about four miles farther to get there and of course were too late to save anything. Doug says that the Jorenbys had bought a wood-burning furnace, not an oil furnace, and that they intended to burn corncobs in it. For that reason they had had the cornsheller deposit the cobs in their basement, rather than in a pile in the yard. Of course the basement full of corncobs was great tinder for the fire.

To my Jorenby cousins, can anyone verify the details of this fire for me?

Honoring Our Veterans

To the men and women who have given the greatest sacrifice,
THANK YOU for your sacrifices.
To the soldiers currently fighting for freedom and democracy,
THANK YOU for your service.
To the wives, mothers, and children waiting patiently back home,
THANK YOU for your patience.
To the wounded who deal with their pains and memories every day,
THANK YOU for your sacrifices.
To the doctors and nurses who come to the aid of those wounded in war,
THANK YOU for your service.
To the soldiers still missing, taken prisoner, or returning unknown,
THANK YOU for your patience.
To the soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen; young and old, at home and afar,
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.

 
Today I pause to remember the veterans in my family who have given the greatest sacrifice:
Kenneth Anderson, Vern Carter, William Carter, Allen Christie, Larry Crapser, Fay Crapser, John Fish, Charles Gillman, Burton Jorenby, Carroll Jorenby, Donald Jorenby, Frank Laabs, Joseph Lane, Alfred Luze, Dale Luze, Adelbert Printup, Bernard Singsaas, Merle Taylor, Erwin Waage, Tom S. Wicks, David Workman, Richard J. Ziegler, and Richard L. Ziegler.

I also thank the veterans who stand strong with us today:
Justin Benthin, Jerry Boellaard, Cal Christie, Don Crapser, Maynard Crapser, David Jorenby, Lyle Jorenby,  Allen Luze, Curt Luze, DuWayne Luze, and Danny Sharp.

Thank you for your service and the sacrifices you've made!


P.S.  If I've missed a veteran, my apologies.  Please feel free to comment on this post and let me know.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Fancy in Sac City Iowa

Here's another photo from Grandma Leola's collection.  I do not know who the girl in this photo is.  The photographer's mark on this photo indicates the studio was called Adams and was in Sac City, Iowa.

From Leola's Unknown Photos

Mappy Monday: Waage Family Migration Map

In 2005 I put together a book for the descendants of John and Ida Waage.  While creating the book, I found myself wondering where all the homes were located.   In an effort to document that, I pinpointed all the named locations on a Google map.  Below is the result.



View Waage family emigration in a larger map


Locations pinpointed on the map include

• Haugesund, Rogaland, Norway
• Skanevik, Hordaland, Norway
• Lisbon, IL
• Roland, Story, IA
• McCallsburg, Story, IA
• Fulton, Hansen, SD
• Volga, Brookings, SD
• Lake Sinai, Brookings, SD
• Arlington, Brookings, SD
• White, Brookings, SD
• Lake Campbell, Brookings, SD
• Fremont Township, Moody, SD
  

Happy 121st Birthday to the Dakotas!

On November 2, 1889 North Dakota and South Dakota were admitted to the union by proclamations signed by President Benjamin Harrison.  They were the 39th and 40th states to join the Union.

Interesting Fact:  The order in which the proclamations for North Dakota or South Dakota were signed is unknown. 

The actual statehood proclamations for North and South Dakota were intentionally shuffled so that no one actually knows which was admitted first; President Benjamin Harrison always refused to tell the order in which he signed the two statehood bills. However, North Dakota's proclamation was published first in the Statutes at Large (since it is first alphabetically).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_date_of_statehood

Happy Birthday, South Dakota and North Dakota!