Incarcerated in Iowa - An Historical Prison Project

This post isn't directly related to genealogy, although if you happen to be related to anyone incarcerated at the Fort Madison State Penitentiary in the past century and a half, it may have something to do with your genealogy. I still believe it's an important and interesting project.



My cousin, Mark Fullenkamp, is involved in a project, scanning in old glass negatives, some as much as 150 years old, found in the old Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison, Iowa. You may remember my post regarding photos Mark took at the St. James Cemetery in St. Paul, Iowa that demonstrated a bit of genealogical serendipity. You can find that article here: http://matthewkmiller.blogspot.com/2013/07/who-finds-who.html



The poster, created by Mark, incorporated one of the photos he found.
He selected this one due to the way his eyes capture the viewer.
Other than inverting the colors and adjusting the overall hue,
the eyes are exactly as shown in the original photo.

2013 - Most Popular Posts of the Blog's First Year

I'm trying to come up with a good subject for my next blog post but nothing is inspiring me, so... I'll give you the most popular posts on my blog this year.

The most popular post this year, narrowly beating the second place entry is "What Constitutes Proof?" This post is a rundown of everything I know about Elizabeth "Lizzie" Juliana Dunzinger, my great-grandmother. I've found quite a bit of circumstantial evidence pointing to Andreas/Andrew and Fanny Dunzinger of New York and Wemding Bavaria to make me believe they are her parents. I'm hoping to find concrete proof of this. It got quite a few of the visits due to it being mentioned in the Genealogy Guys and the Genealogy Gems podcasts.

Coming in second is my post titled "Who Finds Who?" It tells the story of the discovery of my great-great-great-grandfather's grave and it's near discovery by my cousin's son, who had literally tripped over it but still didn't find it. As another one of my cousins described it, "unbelievable, awesome, spooky and hilarious all rolled in to one!"

Coming in at a solid third was the report of my initial discovery of Elizabeth Dunzinger, "Elizabeth Dunzinger Possibly Found", describing how I found her and what I found, along with follow-ups on some research in Wemding.

Have a subject you think will make a good blog post? Do you have a research question you'd like an answer to? A research technique to let people know about? A branch of our shared family tree you'd like posted? Drop me a message!

--Matt

Who Finds Who?

I've heard stories of people, genealogists in particular, visiting cemeteries, looking for the headstone of one of the ancestors and they are somehow drawn to park in a particular spot or walk in a particular direction that helps them find the headstone easily instead of spending hours on end looking at each and every headstone hoping to find that one.

When it comes to my family history research, it almost seems as if aunts and uncles I know and love, when they pass, they go through Heaven, round up the ancestors and get them to check in with their descendants. Before my Aunt Loretta died, we knew nothing of the Panther ancestors. Eight months after she passed, the breakthrough discovery was made that allowed me to research an extensive family tree going back to the 1650s. Then, this past December, my Uncle Urban passed away and just a few months later, I made a breakthrough discovery that (hopefully) will open another extensive family history project. I've heard genealogists state very convincingly, "They want to be found."

Here's another example that is just uncanny. When I went to my Uncle Urban's funeral, I went to St. James Cemetery in St. Paul, Lee County, Iowa in order to take a photo of my great-great-grandmother's headstone. I was very happy I found her! Then when I got back, I was disappointed when I discovered that one of my great-great-great-grandfathers is buried in the same cemetery and I didn't realize it so I didn't think to look for him and get a photo of his headstone. I sent an email to a cousin of mine that lives not too terribly far from there that is also interested in genealogy and is a great photographer. His name is Mark Fullenkamp. I asked him to see if he could find Johan Heinrich Kempker's headstone the next time he was in the area and get a photo for me.

He was happy to do so and stopped with his kids at the cemetery in St. Paul. It was a very cold and blustery day and hard as he tried, he couldn't find Great-Great-Great-Grandpa Kempker's headstone. While he was there, he took a few photos of his kids like he typically does. In a couple of the photos, it shows his son walking through the cemetery and tripping. We were both disappointed he couldn't find the headstone of the last of my ancestors buried in America that I don't have a photo of.

This past weekend, I got back to the area and found Johan Heinrich Kempker's headstone. It's a very distinctive shape that you can't confuse with any other headstone in the cemetery. I uploaded the photo to Find-A-Grave and sent Mark a link to it. He went through his photos and discovered this.

Yes, his son tripped directly in front of Johan Heinrich's headstone. I think his great-great-great-great-grandfather was trying to get his attention.

--Matt