Go Jessica ! ! It is wonderful to know of someone so young with an intense interest in genealogy! And you will find unbelievably helpful souls on this list. Good luck. Sandy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jessica Cangiano" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 1:49 AM Subject: [G-P-L] Reposting of introduction message My sincere apologies, everyone, I didn't know that it's not a good idea to write messages in Word and then post them in mailing lists (as doing so can cause some of the characters, like apostrophes, that you used when composing your message to appear as question marks.) I'm going to re-post my initial message and hopefully this time it will be free of this issue. (*Original message*) Hi everyone, I’m new to this mailing list and am taking Wolf up on his friendly invitation to introduce myself to the group. My name is Jessica, I’m 25 years old, and I’ve recently begun to delve into my family’s genealogy. I’ve been a history buff with an interest in genealogy quite literally my whole life, but it’s only been during the past couple of months that I’ve actually started to put my shoulder to the wheel and dive into exploring my family’s past. At present I know very little regarding my family history beyond the names of my great-grandparents (in the case of one g-grandfather, I don’t even know his name yet), save for my maternal great-grandfather’s family (the Burkhards), who I’ve very recently been able to discover quite a lot about. On my maternal side, my German ancestry springs from the Burkhard (Burkhart) line. It appears that when the Burkhards in my tree came to the new world, many of them (or their descendants) settled in (or later moved to) New York, Nebraska, Iowa, and Ohio (though I’ve found them in other states as well). My maternal great-grandfather was Charles Burkhard (b. 1874 in Omaha, Nebraska, d. In 1945 in Dawson City, Yukon) he married (my g-grandmother) Marie Lefebvre (b. 1886 in St. Honore De Shenley, Quebec, d. 1958 in Long Beach, California). My great-grandparents had nine children, the youngest of their kids, Bernice Schill (née Burkhard), is my grandmother (b. 1930 in Dawson City, Yukon). All of the Burkhard children, save for my grandmother have, sadly, passed away at this point. Bernice married my grandfather Arnold Schill (b. 1923, d. 1990) in 1953 and they had three children, including my mother (Lynn Marie Schill) who was born in 1958 in Maple Ridge, British Columbia. (Their other kids are Donald Wayne [d. 1977] and Lori Gail.) I do not having very much to go on regarding Arnold Schill’ family at this point. His parents’ names were Johannes and Maria Schill (I do not know Maria’s maiden name), who used the names “John and Marie” starting at some point after they arrived in Canada in 1930. Sadly my grandfather (Arnold) passed away in 1990, and so my (very limited) knowledge of his family comes from what my grandmother (Bernice) can remember, as well as from a passenger list I found (from a ship called the Montclare, which was part of the Canada Pacific fleet). Bernice believes that my grandfather and his parents (and siblings) were Romanian, and the ship’s log backs this up (as the Schill’s country of origin is listed as Romania). On this voyage the ship departed from Hamburg, Germany and landed in Montreal, Quebec on June 21, 1930. However – and this is purely hypothetical on my part at this point – I cannot help but wonder if at some point the Schill family has roots in Germany, where the surname Schill sometimes appears. This is definitely something that I’m actively trying to find information about. At this time, aside from the names of some of Arnold’s siblings, and his parent’s place of death (both passed away in Pitt Meadows, British Columbia), I do not have any information about this branch of my family. I am very actively investigating the Schill family and hope that I will be able to take that part of my family tree beyond 1923 (the year when my grandfather was born). Some initial things I’ve love to learn are what part of Romania the Schill family was from, what Johannes and Maria’s parents were named (and from there keep building the Schill line further back), when/where John, Maria and their other kids were born, and if in fact, they were of German origin. On my paternal side, I know very little about my Germany relations, but I’ll share what I have discovered so far. My paternal great-grandfather was named Alfred Grams and he was born in Germany (I don’t know whereabouts), but immigrated to Canada as a child. He may have been born in 1920 (I am not certain yet of this) and possibly died in the 1970s (according to my mother, who does not recall meeting Alfred, he died before I was born in ’84). He may have died in Vancouver, British Columbia. (He may have fought, I’m assuming for Canada, in WW2.) I do not know the names of Alfred’s parents (that said, his mother may have been called Lydia, though I’m not sure of this yet), where they were born or anything at all about them. Alfred had siblings, but I do not know their name (save for that one brother may have been called Gustav/Gus). Alfred married my paternal great-grandmother, Mary Walker (about whom I know literally nothing save for her name and approximate year of death, 1995), and together they had three children: Elaine (deceased in the 1990s, was married to Robert [Bob] McCannon, with whom she had two children: Kelly and Jason), Ronald (married a woman named Jeanette [maiden name unknown], had at least two children), and my grandmother, Jean Margaret (b. circa 1942, possibly in Nelson, British Columbia). At some point after their children were born, Alfred and Mary (Walker) divorced. Mary did not remarry, I do not know if Alfred did. Jean (my grandmother) married Loren (sometimes spelled “Lorn”) --- (I know this person’s surname, but for reasons of privacy do not wish to use it online, if you believe you know anything about Jean Grams, please contact me privately and I’d be happy to share Loren’s surname with you). They had four children: Gregory (my father), Debbie (Deborah), Cheryl, and Laurie. At the time my father was born (in 1957) the family was living in Nelson, British Columbia, but shortly thereafter Loren and Jean relocated to the Lower Mainland area of British Columbia. (Note: Loren’s family are of Russian decent and I know exceptionally little about this branch of my family tree; Loren’s mother’s first name was Helen [maiden name unknown], but I do not know his father’s name.) I would greatly love to learn more about the family line of Alfred Grams. At this point in time, the only (and I really do mean “only”) thing I know about his ancestors is that at some point in the 19th century he had a relative named Gottlieb Grams. Regarding the Burkhard family, I’ve been able to discover relatives (via some fantastic genealogy work one of my relatives has carried out) stemming further back than my g-grandfather (Charles Burkhard). I know that his parents were Frank Simon Burkhard and Genevieve Agnes Pischke (her parents were Albert and Victoria [maiden name unknown], and they are as far back as I have information on the Pischke family line). Census records indicate that the Pischke family was of West Prussian ancestry (origin) and lists their mother tongue as being Polish. I would love to find more out about this family, including what their ties to Germany were. Frank Simon Burkhard’s parents (my g-g-g-grandparents) were John (I do not know if this was an anglicised version of Johannes/Johann) Burkhard and Catherine Riedel (parents names unknown). John and Catherine had at least two children: (my g-g-grandfather) Frank Simon (b. 1850 in New York, d. 1910 in Grand Island, Nebraska), and John Burkhard (Jr.) (b. 1844, d. between 1881 – 1900). John married a woman named Cecelia Burkley (b. 1845, d. circa 1920). Cecelia was the daughter of Vincent Burkley and Theresa Stelzer (I do not know more about the Burkley/Stelzer history beyond this, I know the names of John and Cecelia’s kids and many of those peoples’ descendants, though). John and Frank’s parents are thought to be the generation that brought this branch of the Burkhard family tree to America from Germany (possibly circa 1830, after which they settled in Erie Co. New York). I hope very much to one day discover the name of the ship they came over on! John’s father (my g-g-g-g-grandfather) was Simon Burkhard/t (b. circa 1790 in Germany) and his wife was Catherine Zwick. Simon’s father (my g-g-g-g-g-grandfather) was Johann Theobald Burkhard/t (b. circa 1760 in Germany), who was married to Anna Maria Screiner. This past weekend I discovered a RootsWeb document which includes someone named Johann Theobald Burkard/t (who is listed as having a son named Simon) and carries that man’s family line even further back. I am in the process of trying to conclusively (as best as possible) determine if the “Johan Theobald Burkhart” in that document is in fact, the same one in my tree. (Very exciting!) Now before this posts turns into a small book, I will wrap up here. This is my first time ever posting anything online publically about any of my family members (be it in mailing list or elsewhere), and I really am delighted to have found, and be a part of, this group. I look forward to reading your posts and getting to you some of you and your families better! (If anyone reading this can provide further information about any of the people listed above, please do not hesitate to contact me.) Happy genealogical sleuthing to all! Jessica For all the latest News, please visit our Homepage: http://www.germanyroots.com Please visit and participate in our new forum http://www.germanyroots.com/phpBB3/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message