HUNT, Minnie Lucinda (1870-1910)

This one is sad. My great grandmother, Minnie, died at the age of 39 due to the sudden onset of kidney disease (acute parenchymatous nephritis.)

I looked up the cause of death and found information from a 1907 medical book called The Electic Practice of Medicine which would have been very up to date at the time Minnie died. It discusses the symptoms, the definition, the etiology (what causes it), diagnosis and prognosis. Definitely a fatal disease once contracted.

Anyway, what makes it so sad is that this was brought about because she was pregnant. She was hospitalized for 7 days before she died and I have to assume that the baby died when she did. I make this assumption because a month later the census took place and George F Hunt (her husband) is listed as a widowed with 7 children in the house--and none of them are infants.

I'll have to look for her obituary to confirm my suspicions but since the cause of death was acute and not chronic it means the the health problem came about suddenly. This is the first time I've seen one of the women in my tree die while being pregnant or during childbirth.

ALTHOF, Jacob Heinrich (1828-1904)

Continuing on I've essentially translated the long obituary for Jacob Heinrich Althof. From the Erie Tageblatt, Erie Pennsylvania, dated Saturday, October 22, 1904, which says:

Jacob Althof

Mr. Jacob Althof one of the oldest and best known Germans in the city died shortly after 4 a.m. today in the home of his son located at 119 East 17th Street, at the age of 75. He had been bedridden from April, suffering from diabetes. In July he as admitted to the Hamot Hospital for two weeks where he had a toe removed. After his hospital stay he moved in with his son where he lived until his death. His fever [I think] took a turn for the worse and he died this morning.

Mr Althof was one of the oldest planing mill owners in this city. He was born in Germany and he married Miss Gertrude Druschel. He immigrated [with his family] to Erie in 1852 when the city was still small and lived here as it continued to grown and thrive. He first worked as a house carpenter, later as a builder/contractor, later still as a planing mill owner on State Street between 7th and 8th. There a steam boiler [exploded] ruining the entire mill. They then christened [re-opened] an old planing mill on Peach Street between 12th and 13th, where he operated for 10 years before relocating to 18th and French Street in a mill that he built. That building was closed down and he was forced to build a new mill on 11th and French Streets. In 1884 two of his sons, George and Samuel, joined him under the company name Gebruder Althof.

Mr. Althof leaves behind his wife, six sons and a daughter. His sons are George, Daniel, Samuel, Benjamin, William, and Frank, all of whom live in Erie except Daniel who has settled in the far west. His daughter Lydia likewise lives in Erie. He also leaves behind a brother, Peter Althof (aged 84) and a sister, Mrs. Katharina Diesterdict (aged 78.) The body is to be interred in Erie Cemetery. 

The viewing will be Monday at 2 p.m. at the home of the family, 119 East 17th Street. Rev. E. Kohne from the Salem Church will officiate. The body will be interred in Erie Cemetery, The deceased was a member of the United Workmen, Maccabaer Ritter and the Harugaris, and representatives from all of these organizations will be present at the funeral.

This is a really rough translation. The article is 10 inches long and took more than 12 hours for me to translate. I want to get my translation confirmed by a German speaker since the second paragraph was extremely difficult and there are several gaps where I had difficulty with a half dozen words and couldn't figure out what they meant at all.

Even with a rough translation we learn a lot from a genealogy perspective. Jacob was either a middle or youngest child since his brother and sister are both older than him. We know the names and where his children live in 1904. We even know the maiden name of his wife and that she was still living in October 1904. This gives me an enormous amount of information to research further on this line. How cool.

Now from an individual perspective Jacob started from a simple carpenter and matured into a business owner that faced difficulties and success along the way. He lived to see some of his sons join him in his business too. We also know that Jacob struggled with diabetes which may have finally led to death. He is also buried in Erie Cemetery. Jacob grew to obviously be a well respected and influential man in Erie. What a great legacy to leave to his family.

We also learn from the article that he was a member of a fraternal order that was formed in the US and Canada after the Civil War (United Workmen) to provide insurance to it's members and the Harugari--another fraternal order formed in 1847 in New York meant to bring German immigrants together socially and to help them practice German. The final organization may be of Jewish origin but I cannot be positive. Maccabaer appears to be the German name for Maccabee which is a Jewish family from nearly 2000 years ago. This last point is pure speculation because I have not found anything specifically regarding the organization. I will continue to research and update this post with anything new I find. Until then ....

ALTHOF, Jacob H (1828-1904)

I recently added a membership to GenealogyBank.com which is primarily a database for old newspapers. It paid off almost immediately in that I found two articles on my great (3x) grandfather, Jacob Heinrich Althof, who was born in Hessia or Prussia (I haven't figured out which yet.)

Anyway, this article is from the Erie Tageblatt, Erie, Pennsylvania, dated October 22, 1904. The Erie Tageblatt--which means daily news--is a newspaper for the German speaking population of Erie at the turn of the 20th century. The obituary for Jacob reads:

Died

Friends and acquaintances, the sad news is that this morning Mr. Jacob Althof, died at the age of 75. The funeral will be held from the apartment of his son, Frank Althoff, 119 East 17th Street, on Monday after at 2 p.m. Friends are invited. [signed] The mourning family.

That's a rough translation using Google translator. I was unable to translate a couple of words but I was able to get the gist of the article. Frank Althof is my great, great grandfather so I gain two pieces of information about some of my direct ancestors--the death of Jacob and the address of Frank.

Additionally, I found a second article on Jacob--another obituary really--which is a written because Jacob was one of the leading citizens of Erie. It took about an hour to translate this small obit and that is after working on two others so that I was more familiar with several of the words and the German alphabet, which has 30 letters.

I've said many times that genealogy is like a puzzle to be solved. These German news articles certainly fit into that category because it takes time to obtain the details. It's not impossible but like an onion the layers are removed slowly increasing the anticipation.

Note: image found on Google images of one of the Erie Tagablatt's mastheads.

MCKEE and GORMAN

The problem with genealogy is that it becomes nearly all consuming for me. I stay up outrageously late because I'm completely unaware of the time as it passes. As I've said before the beauty of researching online now is that the ability to research grows as time goes on. Not only because more data is uploaded constantly but because over time you learn about more branches on your family tree.

The weekend its been all about trying to locate which branches had my Irish ancestors--nearly always referenced as a slur. I looked at my family tree on Saturday and saw two lines that had Irish surnames and no information on them. I first started by looking at the census data I already had on these lines and quickly found that my great (3x) grandmother's parents were born in Ireland. Cool! It turns out I'd had the information for forever and didn't realize it.

I spent most of the weekend trying to move the branch back one more generation but to no avail. The data on them is either not on line yet or the lived in a neighboring state for a while. I'll keep looking. That family name is McKee.

The other name with a likely Irish link is Gorman. That line is also proving to be somewhat elusive at the moment. It too is a female line which is typically more difficult to trace backward. I'll keep pursuing that line too until I find something.

Now I'd rather research than work, it is a bummer that I have to work today.

MCKEE, Elizabeth (Eliza)

I've been looking for the Irish branch of my family for quite a while now. I was talking to my uncle yesterday and asking him what he remembered my grandmother--his-mother--saying about the Irish influence but it wasn't much other than it was periodically used as a slur by my grandmother. As I was talking to him it occurred to me that maybe I could identify possibilities by looking for Irish surnames. It didn't take me long to find a couple of potential branches with Irish looking surnames and no ancestor information on them.

Eliza McKee was my first and most like option and I started relooking at census information for her and her husband George W Rice--my great, great, great grandfather. I found in the 1880 census that George's parents were from Pennsylvania but Eliza's parent's were from Ireland. My first and most likely guess was right.

I haven't gotten much further than that but it has encouraged me and I am trying to find out more about Eliza now. She and George have proven to be a difficult branch to research but now I have additional incentive to try and find out more about them since my friend and I are planning to take a trip to Ireland in the next couple of years.