Find of the Week – Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

Genea-Musings posed this question: Your Best Genealogy Find of the Week (or Month)? for this week’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun. So here’s mine!

My Kroll family tree has been a favorite project of mine. The Kroll family immigrated to Maryland from Germany in the early 1800s. Finding information about them, and the various branches, has had it’s challenges. One of the challenges was a more recent ancestor, my great-grandfather’s sister Louise who was born in Baltimore, MD in 1892.

Louise was the second child of my great-great grandparents, Samuel and Annie Kroll. She appears in the 1900 census as Louisa M. Kroll. She noted as being 7 years old, and in school. This is the only documentation I had been able to find about her, and it was what I based her name on in my tree. My mother had notes from her grandmother, where she wrote some information about the family. Louise isn’t listed, but her sister Dora is. I spent quite awhile trying to find out what happened to Louise. Did she marry before the 1910 census? She would have been 17, so it was possible. Did she pass away? I couldn’t find anything. But then, I did.

I stumbled across a Louise C. A. Kroll in the Maryland death index who died in 1905. The index doesn’t give any information other than a name, date of death, and record number. Could it be our Louisa? If so, not only did she die young, but she would have also died a week before her father had an accident at work that injured him badly and sent him to the hospital.

Maryland Archives makes it easy to request records. A simple form filled out with the information from the index, and a $5 payment for an uncertified copy ($20 for certified). Two days later I received an email with a copy of Louise’s death certificate. This confirmed that she was the daughter of Samuel and Annie Kroll.

Through the death certificate, I learned that her full name is Louise Christina Amelia Kroll. This was interesting, as Louise was Annie’s mother’s name. Christina was Annie’s sister’s name (she also died young, at age 18). And Amelia was Samuel’s sister’s name. And of course, I learned what Louise died of at such a young age. She died of pulmonary tuberculosis after being treated about 11 months for it.

Life Story in 2-5 Minutes

Genea-Musings asked this question for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Tell Your Life Story in Two (or Five) Minutes.

1)  Everyone has a life story, and mine is still ongoing.  Tell us your life story – start with today and go back to your birth.  Do it in 200 to 500 words so you could tell it in two to five minutes.

2)  Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog post on this post.

My name is Melinda and I am currently 43 years old. I am a child of God and a follower of Jesus. I live in Northern Virginia, am married, and have three sons (a teen, an almost teen, and one under 10). We live near my parents, and near where I grew up, and we visit them weekly. I’m a stay at home mom, and I also homeschool all three boys. We are not COVID “homeschoolers”, I’ve homeschooled all three since kindergarten.

I spend my days educating my boys, keeping them busy (lots of field trips and park visits), and taking care of the household. We have 3 pets – an Australian Cattle Dog, a Cattle Dog mix, and a muted calico kitty. When I’m not busy with my boys or the house, I enjoy doing family research, reading about history, watching tv shows about history, and watching baseball (Washington Nationals!).

Prior to being a stay at home mom, I worked for the federal government in administrative positions. I worked for the Department of Defense mostly, working for the Army and Marine Corps in a few different jobs. I also spent a couple of years working for the DEA.

My very first job was as a receptionist for a minor league baseball team, the Prince William Cannons. They were an affiliate for the Yankees back then. I attended middle school and high school in Northern Virginia. I attended 5th and 6th grades in Jacksonville, FL. I attended K-4th in Northern Virginia. I went to college in Northern Virginia, majoring in Legal Studies and Business.

In my early years, I spent a lot of time at my maternal grandparent’s home. My grandma babysat me during the day, and there was almost always at least one other cousin there. I was blessed with several cousins on my mom’s side, and we were all close growing up.

I was born in Northern Virginia in 1978. I am an only child, though I have a younger brother that was stillborn when I was in Kindergarten.

Saturday Night Fun – Surname Line

Genea-Musings asked for this week’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – How many children/grandchildren are in your birth surname line?

• Thomas Ledbetter (1600-1658) had 1 child and 7 grandchildren
• Henry Ledbetter (1625-1700) had 7 children and 7 grandchildren (possibly more)
• Richard Ledbetter (1666-1759) had 5 children and 8 grandchildren (possibly more)
• Richard Ledbetter II (1700-1767) had 8 children and 17 grandchildren (possibly more)
• Richard Ledbetter III (1738-1841) had 10 children and 64 grandchildren
• Jonathan Ledbetter (1798-1845) had 10 children and 37 grandchildren
• Jonathan Ledbetter (1828-1885) had 6 children and 26 grandchildren (4 died young)
• William Ledbetter (1861-1920) had 11 children (4 died young) and 30 grandchildren
• William Ledbetter (1903-1973) had 3 children and 9 grandchildren
• William Ledbetter (1930-present) had 3 children and 4 grandchildren
• Larry Ledbetter (1955-present) had 2 children (one stillborn) and 3 grandchildren

As usual, the further back I go, the harder it is to know exactly how many children were born to each line. I have more research to do starting with Richard Ledbetter II. I’m fairly confident with the generations after him as the Ledbetter line is heavily documented.

Richard III is my DAR Patriot. I had several to choose from when I applied, but I knew how well his line was documented and figured I would go with the easiest. He’s also rather fascinating. His family was attacked by Native Americans while he was away fighting in the war, and two of his daughters were scalped. I do not know the names of those daughters, only that they were “young”, and they are not included in the number of children. His oldest documented child is Richard IV, born in 1779. Richard III married Nancy Johnson in 1773. His 10 children spread from NC to GA to TX and beyond as adults, and they are the reason that so many Ledbetter descendants are found in the Texas, etc. area.

Childhood Collections

Genea-Musings posted this question for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun;

In your childhood (and into the teenage years), what did you save or collect as a hobby or interest?  Do you still have them?

When I was elementary age, I collected a few different things. I loved rocks, and would find a new treasure pretty much anywhere that I went. I found a large rock (I’ll eventually post a picture of it here!) behind our house, and my parents still have it.

I also collected Cabbage Patch Dolls. I was a true child of the ’80s, and had a good sized collection thanks to my paternal grandma. It was a tradition that I got a new one from her every Christmas. They lived in my parents’ attic for many years, but I don’t think they’re there anymore.

Going from childhood into teen years, I started collecting autographs, mostly of athletes. Over the years I sent many fan letters requesting autographs. I also met quite a few athletes at different sporting events and autograph signings. I would check the sports page every week looking for autograph opportunities. I still have a large binder full of the autographs that I collected. Some of note are; Mickey Mantle (met him at one of his book signings in Washington, DC), Peyton Manning (I sent him fan mail when he was playing college football, and he sent back a couple of autographed pictures), Frank “The Big Hurt” Thomas, Charlie Sheen (my dad caught a ball he autographed and threw into the crowd when we were at the filming of Major League II). Many of the ones I have are of my beloved circa 1990s Washington Redskins.

Childhood Home

Genea-Musings asked the question for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Was Your Childhood Home Like?

Though I haven’t moved much in my life, I do have three homes that I grew up in. The one that I consider to be my childhood home though, is the one we lived in when I was in first through early fifth grades.

We lived in a neighborhood in Alexandria, VA, not far from George Washington’s Mount Vernon.

I attended school at Mount Vernon Woods Elementary, which was down the street from our house. Our house was on a pretty quiet street, and had three bedrooms upstairs, and one bedroom downstairs. Upstairs was also the kitchen, dining room, and living room. I’m an only child, so the third bedroom was my play room. I spent a lot of time in there playing with my dolls.

Downstairs was a laundry room, and a large rec room. When we moved in, the people before us left a full size pool table behind in the rec room. I had a lot of fun pretending to know how to play pool! My childhood cat, Rusty, loved to lay on the pool table and bat the balls into the pockets. Sometimes at night it sounded like someone was really down there playing pool.

We had a screened in deck off of our dining room, but we didn’t spend a lot of time out there. Our backyard was huge (at least in my mind it was!), and I had a swing set and an above ground pool. The back of our yard ran alongside a large drainage ditch, which to us kids was a “creek”. A lot of honeysuckle grew along there, and we spent a lot of time pulling the flowers off and sucking out the nectar. To this day, I can be driving, and smell honeysuckle growing along the road, and think of my time in that yard.

Our side yard, in the front, had berry bushes growing. We also had a really neat tree in the front yard that had a “seat” grown into the trunk. I loved sitting on it.

We had a crab apple tree in the yard which made a huge mess, and the bees loved it. Being a typical kid, I was afraid of bees, so I avoided it as much as I could.

Saturday Night Fun – My OTHER Hobbies

Genea-Musings posted this question today for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What are your other hobbies or pastimes?

I’m a homeschool mom of three boys, so I don’t have a whole lot of extra time for hobbies!

In my free time, when I’m not wrangling kids, teaching kids, or researching my family history, I love to read.  Being the true history loving nerd family historian that I am, historical fiction is my favorite genre.  I tend to gravitate toward books that take place in the 1600s-early 1900s, and I focus mostly on American stories.  I do occasionally read other genres, and when I stray from historical fiction, it’s usually a psychological thriller or a good mystery.

In the past, before I discovered my love for genealogy, my hobby was collecting autographs of my favorite athletes, watching sports, and attending sporting events.  I was a huge fan of football and baseball.  My parents were amazing, and took me to many Washington Redskins and Baltimore Orioles games.  My favorite college football team was the Miami Hurricanes, and I was even able to see them play twice in West Virginia.

For the autographs, many of them I collected in person while meeting the different athletes.  My best friend and I even took the metro into D.C. one afternoon, stood in line for a few hours, to meet Mickey Mantle.   He was signing his book, All My Octobers.

During this time, the Washington Redskins were playing at RFK stadium in DC.  The player’s parking lot was open so that the public could walk in (can you imagine that today?!?), and I met many of my favorite Redskins after the games.

And finally, this hobby of mine led to my best friend and myself taking part in the filming of Major League II at Camden Yards.  We’ve never found ourselves in the movie, but we’re there!

The Day My Grandmother was Born

-This week’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun question from Genea-Musings is: The Day Your Maternal Grandmother Was Born

My maternal grandmother is Anita Jeanette Gayer Kroll (1929-2013).  She was born on Tuesday, 15 June 1926 in Washington, D.C. to Edward Aloysius Jr. and Edna Lucille (Ernst) Gayer.

The front page of the Washington Evening Star from 15 June 1926:

A break in the weather was expected:

D.C. had an interesting visitor:

 

Grandfather’s Birthday

This week’s Saturday Night Fun Challenge from Genea-Musings is Grandfather’s Birthday.  For this, I chose to focus on my maternal grandfather, who was born 8 January 1923 in Baltimore, Maryland.

1)  What day of the week was your Grandfather born (either one)? Tell us how you found out.

January 8, 1923 was a Monday.  A quick Bing search answered this question!

2) What has happened in recorded history on your Grandfather’s birth date (day and month)?

According to On This Day

• 1790 George Washington delivers first state of the union address
• 1815 Battle of New Orleans (War of 1812)
• 1877 Crazy Horse’s last stand
• 1894 Columbus World’s fair in Chicago destroyed by fire
• 1946 Elvis gets his first guitar “Gladys Presley brings her 11-year-old son Elvis to the Tupelo Hardware Store, in their hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi, buying him a $6.95 guitar as a birthday present. Less than a decade later he will set the rock ‘n roll scene on fire.”
• 1954 pays $4 to a Memphis studio & records his 1st two songs, “Casual Love” & “I’ll Never Stand in Your Way”

3)  What famous people have been born on your Grandfather’s birth date?

According to On This Day…

• 1983 Kim Jong-un
• 1947 David Bowie
• 1942 Stephen Hawking
• 1935 Elvis Presley