The Family Tree
September 11th, 2009 1:49 pm by Shane
This past week I caught the genealogy bug and started looking back at my family tree. I'm a somewhat avid reader of history and I just wanted to see where my family was during the last couple hundred years. Something about knowing that my great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents lived in a small city state just outside of the Holy Roman Empire holds great appeal to me. (I didn't count out the "greats" so I might be off there) If, along the way, I find out that someone in my family was a noteworthy person of a time, well, that would definitely spark some interest in wherever my family was.
I have only started the long process of tracking down my family. I've been contacting family members collating names, places, stories, etc, all the things one needs to slowly piece a family tree together. I have access to Ancestry.com through the Kansas City Public Library, and it's been an invaluable source so far. All the US Census Lists from 1790 through 1930 are available with the exception of the 1890 census which was lost in a fire, tons of marriage and death records are online, and various newspapers have been scanned in and optically read. A lot of the documents are also available as image files so you can peruse them yourself to interpret the handwriting. I've found a lot of names that were just hard to convert from image to text automatically.
So what have I found? The most distance ancestor I can find is Martin Vielhauer born in 1505 in a village known as Böeckingen, Germany. When he was born, it was basically a free village associate with Hielbronn, Germany which seems to have worked out some deal with the Holy Roman Empire to remain free and independent. The Vielhauers stayed there until the 1860's when they started to emigrate to the Herkimer, NY area where a bunch still remain. It is in Herkimer, NY that the Brady and Vielhauer line came together.
Which leads me to the next thing I found. My great-grandfather Roy Brady's father has been extremely hard to find. I don't even know his name yet. It's also possible that his name was originally spelled "Bradey" and that he changed it later. I have a bunch more avenues available to me to find out who my great-great grandfather was, so I'm not done yet. Once I figure out who he is, I can finally trace my Brad(e)y heritage. I do remember my grandfather telling me there was some Scottish in the line as well, so that is helpful.
On my mother's side, I found out something completely new to me. I was always under the impression that my grandfather on my mother's side was born from two German immigrants. I was surprised to learn that my great grandfather was born in Belgium and reported on the 1930's census that his first language was French. I had no idea. I found his brother and his birthplace, and he too was born in Belgium, specifically the Leuven, Belgium area. I still can't explain why French was listed as a first language, but it appears that I have a lot of Flemish in me, and that's something I wasn't aware of.
I'm not that familiar with the Flemish ethnic group, but now that I know I'm part Flemish, I'm interested enough to read a book or two. I don't expect to learn anything about myself, and I don't feel any particular connection to Belgium that would effect me. There is just nothing I have in common with anyone then in Belgium. My ancestors were either farmers or jacks of all trades living in a time before electricity. Me, I'm a computer programmer addicted to electronic devices for almost everything I do. I've made it thirty-four years without knowing I'm Flemish, and if I'd never found out, I'm sure I'd be just fine.
So what is the end result of this? Some of the result of all this, I will explain in next week's post, when I talk about a book I recently read. It's history book that detailed the spice trade history of the middle ages, and now I'm able to tie it into my family history somewhat. You'll see next week how I do it. But more importantly, I think genealogy is a great way to get people interested, to see how history could have affected their lives. My Irish ancestors came here most likely because of potato famine. That's why I'm in the United States. This post is really an introduction for future posts about science and history and ways it shaped the different paths my family has taken. I would also like to suggest people all try ancestry.com out or see if your local library has access. I think everyone could find it very interesting.
The Louisville which took great-grand uncle Richard Max from Liverpool to New York City
