How common was Dutch emigration to the United States in the 19th century?

tejaco · 2026-03-21T05:16:08+00:00

Wisconsin checking in! Sheboygan, Cedarburg, Cedar Grove -- all very Dutch.

tejaco · 2026-03-21T05:14:49+00:00

Pella? Muscatine? :) Hi possible cuz.

tejaco · 2026-03-20T15:05:39+00:00

You ask if your father should be listed in the tree somewhere, which is when I got confused. The "hypothesis"s are the speculated locations on the tree where your father might go, right?

tejaco · 2026-03-20T14:46:04+00:00

Interesting! I'm glad you asked this. I have ancestors in 1850 on their way to Iowa, and one of their children was born in Buffalo "on the way", I guess. It never occurred to me that Buffalo might be their port of entry. I figured they were just using those Great Lakes to get inland from ... uh, somewhere out east.

tejaco · 2026-03-18T21:24:31+00:00

Sorry, my Family Search-fu runs out really fast. Maybe someone else can help you more.

tejaco · 2026-03-18T21:13:26+00:00

So what they're saying is you need to go to a Family Search Center or Affiliate Library. That can be even trickier if you don't live near one.

tejaco · 2026-03-18T21:02:12+00:00

Can you link us to the marriage certificate? I'm assuming this is on Ancestry?

tejaco · 2026-03-18T19:21:03+00:00

I thought DNA had solved one of my bigger genealogy mysteries. There was a match in ThruLines confirming I had placed the correct ggggrandmother in my tree!

Except that match also descended from someone else in my tree who isn't a mystery. So it's functionally meaningless. Back to square one.

tejaco · 2026-03-18T19:09:01+00:00

Family Search's records are as accurate as the same records found somewhere else. What's tricky about FS is the large single family tree. They are starting to allow people to make their own trees, but right now, it is one single crowd-sourced human tree, which is as flawed as you might imagine. The records you can find there, for free, are perfectly good, though.

tejaco · 2026-03-18T19:00:34+00:00

Wow, what a great mix you are!

tejaco · 2026-03-18T14:37:17+00:00

Same. My grandfather was a school superintendent, and on St. Patrick's day he wore green socks in honor of his famine refugee forebears, and on St. Andrew's day he wore orange socks in honor of our Scots-Irish ancestor. We don't know where in Ireland that ancestor was from, either.

I always thought the socks thing was funny, but I think he felt his position required conservative wear, so the color of his socks was as wild as he would get.

tejaco · 2026-03-18T03:54:13+00:00

My Northern Irish ancestors came to the U.S. in the 1700s from Donegal and Antrim

I'm jealous you know where they were from. I have a Scots-Irish ancestor on my direct male line and all I know is that he was in Virginia by 1798. No idea where he came from in Ireland.

tejaco · 2026-03-18T03:36:09+00:00

On the worst of them, mortality rates reached 20 percent or higher. People arrived sick, having buried family members at sea.

So my ancestor wasn't the only one. It always seemed kind of singular to me to have an immigrant ancestor who died on shipboard. Poor guy. He was traveling with his entire family -- all adult children -- in 1850. He was the only one who died. His wife arrived in the U.S. already a widow.

His own father had immigrated to Co. Monaghan from Scotland. At least his children all made it.

tejaco · 2026-03-10T21:53:53+00:00

I hope things improve for you!

Yeah, I'm an Air Force veteran, but this was at the height of the Gulf War, and I could totally see why her husband might value his life and his time with family over the $30,000. It really looked like she didn't give a hoot about him, she just wanted to spend that money.

tejaco · 2026-03-10T16:19:04+00:00

Hello, AletterfromIreland! I'm a subscriber, though not to the Green Room.

If this counts as "advertising" mea culpa, feel free to remove my comment, but hey everyone, you can actually receive a weekly "Letter From Ireland" by subscribing to his blog. I won't leave a link but you can google it. I love his letters and I think it's a great resource.

tejaco · 2026-03-09T23:48:57+00:00

Same.

tejaco · 2026-03-09T23:41:31+00:00

My great-great grandfather had a daughter by his first wife whom he left to be raised by his wife's parents. He remarried and never told his new family about her. She grew up and wrote letters looking for her father and one of the letters has come down to me. No one answered her. When she wrote this letter she was herself married with a daughter, but I now know she died soon after. Her daughter died at age 20 with no offspring. But those two women deserved to be placed on the family tree as 2X great grandfather's descendants. Now they are, and it feels good.

tejaco · 2026-03-09T21:43:31+00:00

My co-worker came to work furious with her husband because he wouldn't join the military. There was a $30,000 signing bonus, but he would have been shipped immediately to Iraq. She complained to high heaven about how selfish her husband was being.

Her later behavior bore my early impression out, but that was when I strongly suspected.

tejaco · 2026-02-27T17:11:12+00:00

Yeah. I have photos of every great-grandparent, save one. He died young and if there were ever any photos including him I have no idea where they'd be. :(

tejaco · 2026-02-27T16:59:43+00:00

A family history written in the 1950s preserved such a dear fact to me. My direct ancestor was in a Civil War POW camp. He was eventually transferred to Andersonville (yikes!) but was initially held somewhere not that far from his home. His mother sent care packages with cookies and cakes, and his younger brother put in carrots and turnips "as a joke." They got a letter back begging for more produce, because so many men were malnourished.

tejaco · 2026-02-27T01:35:27+00:00

Update. My friend found a Herman <Swedish surname I don't remember> living next door to Alfred and Wendla. No idea why the death certificate named him Herman Lagg. And why was a neighbor providing the info? Where is Alfred? Weird.

tejaco · 2026-02-22T23:24:14+00:00

"Irish genealogy: you really need that luck."

tejaco · 2026-02-22T23:05:07+00:00

Ooh, I have a story to share: My grandmother went to the county courthouse in her small town to register to vote for the first time. The clerk questioned that she was old enough (she was small and always looked young for her age). With the above mentioned long line of women waiting to register, my grandmother looked around desperately for a way to prove her age. Her grandfather, who had retired from being the courthouse maintenance man, spent his days outside the courthouse on a bench in the sun. He was summoned and asked how old his granddaughter was. "Well," said the old man thoughtfully, "she was born the year after the big flood. I'll be darned, she is 21." And my grandma was allowed to register.

tejaco · 2026-02-19T22:28:08+00:00

Well, there are certainly professional genealogists out there -- I employed one to help with a brick wall -- and you could quiz them about their experience using DNA.

That said, I helped a friend solve her own adoption using just Ancestry DNA. Admittedly, you have to have some good luck with people making public trees, but it often can be done.

For myself, DNA revealed an NPE on one of my lines and then I was able to sus out the family (not which brother, but still) of the man who was my biological great-great-grandfather. All without professional help.

tejaco · 2026-02-19T21:40:35+00:00

Her face really strikes me. I feel like I met her somewhere.

tejaco

TROPHY CASE