SUCCESS STORIES
I live in (City / County): Elgin, Bastrop, TX
Name: Charles Matheson, Sr. matheson@texas.net
Date: 2000-05-20
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: WorldConnect
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
As a child, I never knew my parents families. Mother spoke of her parents, sisters & brothers on occasion, but I never met any of them nor any of my father's kin. When ever I asked about our origins, mother would say " Your Scotch Irish on yuour mother & father's side & you should be proud of it.", all the time speaking like a Scotchman. Now, more then 50 years have passed & I am trying to find my roots. I have had a computer for more then 10 years & it was only in 1998 that I decided to obtain a net provider & try my luck on the net. Shortly after I signed on, I heard about rootsweb & went to their site & posted my first message, Looking for information on Charles L. Matheson. This was in the early part of the year & we did not receive any hits by June when we went to visit my youngest son who is in the Army. Then in late July we went to the Gathering of the Matheson Clan in Scotland returning in Aug. I went to check my email upon our return & shouted out to my wife that I had a message from someone that they had information on Charles L. Matheson. This message was from a friend of another woman who it turns out is the daughter of a half brother I did not know of. We sent several messages back and forth & even talked on the phone several times. I can not begin to tell you the joy that filled my heart upon learning that I had discovered more family members. We exchanged copies of the information we each had collected including photos. My father had a total of 4 wives during his lifetime & my mother was his 3rd. He had no children with his first wife, 2 children with his 2nd wife ( the new member did not know that her grandmother had 2 sons by my father), 6 children by my mother ( she claimed the 2nd son of the 2nd wife for a total of 7 children) & as far as I can find out, no children by his 4th wife. We have not been able to locate a divorce from the 2nd wife or from my mother anywhere. Then in Nov of 1999, another message came from my posting on My Family . Com. The person posted her message on my Matheson/Banks web site & gave some information on my ggrandfather, Neil. She said it was so close to Christmass & she had other things to do as well but would get back to me with more information she had gathered about our family through a son of Neil's. I am going nuts waiting for that information. In Jan of this year another lady sent me a message asking about a name that did not strick a bell with me until she sent me a 2nd message with William Matheson & the other person's name together. I quickly picked up my Matheson note book & turned to his pages. Sure enough, there was the name she was looking for. It was the wife of William. I sent her what information I had & she in returned told me her grandmother's name is Anna Matheson, the daughter of William. I sent her copies of all I have on the family & she is going to visit her grandmother & learn all she can about the family. She is also going to try & visit the 2nd lady, who it turns out, lives near Anna in Indiana. She has given me information on her family to add to my collection & I am most gratefull. This makes 3 branches of the family I have found all because of that first message I placed on rootsweb. Plus, I received another inquiry this month that looks like another line for the tree. My Matheson's & Banks are from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Tronto & Scotland. I am still trying to learn about the Banks side of the family. WHAT A BLESSING THIS SITE HAS BEEN. Charles Matheson, Sr. matheson@texas.net

 



I live in (City / County): San Antonio, Bexar, TX
Name: Edward Y. Cooper georgen.ed@gateway.net
Date: 2000-04-06
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: Clusters
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
My mother had researched her maiden name, VOGLER, for years before she died 1988. She knew from contacts that VOGLERs had come to America from a town named Gundelsheim, Germany, but never could find where it was on the map. Through posting her quest on RootsWeb a couple of months ago I was contacted by a man who lives just 10 miles from Gondelshiem (town name had been changed). He sent me a map as an email attachment. He then went to the town church and copied records for me from 1698 through 1741, and sent them to me, along with translations from the old German to English. we now have detailed records of births, marriages, etc. As it turned out, I later found that this same information had been researched and documented 20 years ago by a foundation for the VOGLERs that I hadn't known of. But they didn't have copies of the old records, just the information from them. I have now gotten together with the foundation and am funishing them with copies of what has been given to me. They are elated to have it, as you might expect. The cover page for this church book is a real work of art. If there was room to show it here I would be happy to do it. For a copy emailed to you request to Edward Cooper

 



I live in (City / County): Brownwood, Brown, TX
Name: Beth Rasmussen beth@bwoodtx.com
Date: 2000-04-28
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: GenConnect
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
Thanks to a wonderful lady,CAROL ANDERSON, who saw my query on the Sawyer Co, Wi. genconnect board ,my husbands great uncle has been found. CARL RASMUSSEN first came to this country from Denmark about 1891. He came with his brother ARNOLD RASMUSSEN. They were glaziers and the family story is they came to work on the windows for the Chicago Exposition of 1893. Arnold stayed in America and lived in Chicago for many years. He died in 1949.All of his family is gone now except for Don's dad who is 92. He knows very little about Carl and nothing about their life in Denmark. It now seems that Carl went to Wisconsin before 1910, he is listed in the census there. He was back in Chicago in 1920. We knew he went back to Wisconsin,but evidently he returned to Denmark first, because the 1920 census shows his family immigrated in 1914. The surprising part of this story is that for several years we lived in the same town as Carls grandson and his family and didn't know it. Carls daughter had married a man named Thannam. They had a son Allan who lived in East Peoria, at the same time that we did. Our children even went to high school together! My husband was so excited when CAROL ANDERSON from Hayward Wisc., sent me an e-mail saying she had found a farm which had belonged to Carl. I wrote a letter to a Gilbert Rasmussen who lived on the farm. One night recently, this Gilbert called us and told us that he was not related, but his parents and Carl and his wife had been best friends. They just happened to both be Rasmussens. He gave us Allan Thannam name and my husband called him. Both were very excited! To top it all off, Allans son, Scott lives in Fort Worth and went to Wedgewood Baptist Church with my daughter, Dara. She thought he looked familiar but never connected him with high school. She sure was surprised when her dad told her Scott Thannam was her third cousin! Carl's daughter Johanna Thannam will be 99 years old on May 21st. Don is planning to go to Wisconsin for the birthday party and meet all these found relatives. Her sister Mabel who is about 83 will be there also. Unfortunately, dads health will not permit him to go, but he took Johannas phone number and is going to call her. He was about 12 years old last time he saw her. He was pretty excited too! Thanks to Genconnect and rootsweb for making this a happy story.

 



I live in (City / County): Richardson, Dallas, TX
Name: Robin Taylor robinlt@airmail.net
Date: 2000-03-30
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: WorldConnect
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
I have been working on my family histories seriously for several years. I had compiled the information I knew and entered it into a genealogy database. I had contributed the information I had documented to other internet sites but had not had much response. Within a few weeks of contributing my information to WorldConnect, I had heard from cousins that I had not known before. A whole line of our family has been reconnected in two cases. Another cousin I knew about, but had never met - my greatgrandmother was his grandfather's half-sister. I have been able to collect information on my husband's family as well. He had thought he had a small family. Now I have almost as much information on him as I do on my side. My son is also interested in genealogy and will continue the research in the future. I have participated and tried to share in several discussion lists. I really appreciate what Rootsweb offers. Robin Taylor

 



I live in (City / County): El Paso, El Paso, TX
Name: James E. Skelton skeltonje@aol.com
Date: 2000-04-12
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: Mailing Lists
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
SUCCESS IN SEARCHING GERMAN ROOTS After reading other success stories, I decided to share the success story of my search for the German roots of John Frederick Kasling, my Great-Grandfather. My search for my Mother’s Grandfather’s German roots began some fifty years ago in 1949, when I wrote a family history report for my high school history class. My Grandmother Kasling was 83 years old and she told me what she could remember about her father-in-law, John Frederick Kasling. She told me that he was born about 1832 in Bavaria and had come to the U. S. A. when he was about 19 years old and had lived with an aunt in Springfield, Sangamon Co., Illinois. He married Elenor Quigley, an Irish immigrant, and after their children were born, they moved around 1880 to Linden, Cass County, Texas (my birthplace). My Grandmother Kasling gave me no dates other than the date of my Grandfather’s, Edward Stephen Kasling, birth 28 Aug 1857 in Illinois. My Grandparents, Edward Stephen Kasling and Nancy Caroline Givens, were married in 1885, so, the only information that I had was what my Grandmother Kasling knew about John Frederick Kasling from about 1885 until he died 15 October 1892, two weeks before my Mother was born. In the 1960’s, after I was married and beginning my chosen profession and our children had been born, I became interested again in tracing the Kasling lineage. I found John Frederick Kasling and his family in the 1880 Texas Census but could not find him in the 1870, 1860 or 1850 Census of Sangamon Co., Illinois, where my Grandmother had told me the Kaslings were from. Even though, John Frederick Kasling and Elenor Quigley Kasling were buried in a Protestant cemetery in Linden, Texas, next to my Kasling Grandparents, my Grandmother Kasling erroneously believed her Kasling in-laws were originally Roman Catholic, and I was never able to find any church records for them in any Roman Catholic Church in East Texas or Illinois. So, for the time, I gave up my search for these Great-Grandparents. As I neared retirement in 1996, I returned to my search for these elusive Kaslings. I again checked census reports for Springfield, Sangamon Co., Illinois and as a last resort, I checked the Chicago, Cook Co. census records. Nothing. On a whim, it occurred to me that right next to Sangamon County, Illinois, was Cass County, Illinois and since my Kaslings had come to Cass County, Texas, why not look at Cass County, Illinois. I wrote to the Genealogical Society of Cass Co., Illinois and got a quick response. No Kaslings in Cass Co., Illinois, but in the neighboring Morgan County that also bordered Sangamon County, the Genealogical Society found John Frederick Kesling and Elenor Quigley Kesling and their children in the 1870 Census of Morgan County in Jacksonville, Illinois. They also found the marriage record in 1856 for John Frederick Kesling and Elenor Quigley. This was my first realization that the spelling of the name Kasling or Kesling was probably not the original spelling of the name. I quickly verified that the Morgan County, Illinois, “Kesling family” was my “Kasling Family”. My Grandfather and his sisters were all listed in the 1870 Census of Morgan County, Illinois. I then began my search of all the books listing German immigrants between 1850 and 1856. In the book “German Immigrants, List of Passengers Bound from Bremen to New York”, I found my Great-grandfather, Johann Friedrich Kiesling, from Quellenreuth, Bavaria, listed on the ship manifest of the Bark Constitution sailing from Bremen, Germany, arriving in New York on 16 April 1852, with a destination of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By 1997, I was on the Internet searching for Kasling,Kesling and Kiesling descendants and ancestors for John Frederick Kasling/Kesling/Kiesling. I found none other than my one Kasling cousin and his family who I knew. I soon discovered that Kasling, Kesling and Kiesling were all Anglicized versions of the German surname Kiessling/Kießling. It was then easy to accept that John Frederick Kasling had three spellings of his last name from the time he stepped aboard the Bark Constitution in Bremen in 1852 to the time he arrived in Texas by 1880. The ship manifest gave me new hope. I verified the ship manifest on NARA microfilm at the local LDS Family History Center and everything began to fit with what I knew. I now knew that John Frederick Kasling’s German name was Johann Friedrich Kießling, that he was born in 1832 in Quellenreuth, Bavaria, and in 1852, he had come to New York. He then went to Pittsburgh, Pa., and by 1856, he was in Morgan County, Illinois. There, he married Elenor Quigley and with their children they were in Linden, Cass Co. Texas, just before the 1880 Census. My next step was to find out where Quellenreuth was in Bavaria. By sheer luck, I was given the name of a young man in Bavaria whose last name was Kießling and we started an e-mail correspondence. He was not sure of a family connection, but he told me the location of Quellenreuth: a small village in Bavaria, Northeast of Munich, South of Hof, and close to the Czech border. Future e-mails told me that the Evang. Lutheran parish Church for the area was St. Gumbertus in the town of Schwarzenbach an der Saale and that the village of Quellenreuth was only a mile or two away. St. Gumbertus had a web site, and once I clicked on the web site, I quickly found the name of a person who did genealogy research there at the Church. Unlike many other Evang. Lutheran Churches in Germany, St. Gumbertus church records are all intact and they are still there in the Church. The original church was built after the early founding of the Evang. Lutheran Church by Martin Luther in the 1500’s. After an exchange of several e-mails, this researcher told me that there were Kießling birth, baptism, marriage and death records there in the Church. This researcher quickly found my Johann Friedrich Kießling’s recorded birth, 24 July 1832, and a notation in the margin of the records that Johann had gone to North American in 1852. Johann’s parent’s and sibling’s names, dates of birth, etc. soon followed. Today, I have 250 years of Kießling ancestors before my Great-grandfather came to the U. S. in 1852. I now have some 13 generations spanning 400 years from just before 1600 to my Granddaughter who was born in 1993. Fortunately, as a bonus, I am now in contact with a distant Schodel cousin who lives in Quellenreuth, Bavaria. Even though the surname of this new found German cousin is not Kießling nor Schodel, her family lives in house No. 3 next to my Great-Great-Grandparents house No. 2 and her family farms 110 acres of the original farmland purchased in the early 1800’s. This German cousin’s great-great-great-grandmother was a sister of my Great-Great-Grandmother, Elizabetha Schodel Kießling, mother of John Frederick Kasling. James E. Skelton, e-mail: skeltonje@aol.com

 



I live in (City / County): Meadows Place, Fort Bend, TX
Name: Russell A. Zech raz711@aol.com
Date: 2000-06-09
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: Clusters
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
In a recent copy of the Rootsweb e-letter I saw a link to the Immigrant Ships Transcriber's Guild web site. After searching Volume One with no luck I went on to Volume Two. And there they were, traveling together as family word of mouth had related were my Great Great Grandmother Elizabeth Blumer and my Great Grandmother Maria Blumer from Switzerland. My heart lept as I looked at their names on the manifest of the SS Labrador arrived from Le Harve on January 14, 1982 in New York. But where was Otto? Another family tale related that my Great Grand father Otto had met Maria on the boat. There was a Siegrist Zech and an Otto Ludwig. Perhaps Otto really was running from conscription in one of the European armies of the age as we had also been told. Otto Ludwig aka Otto Zech? The age for Otto is correct. Siegrist would have been three years too old. I'll let you know what I find out. The bibliographic reference at the bottom of the ISTG entry and a quick trip to Amazon.com has a picture of the SS Labrador heading our way. Thank you ever so much for the link to the ISTG web site that provided this rich piece of our geneological puzzle.

 



I live in (City / County): Houston, Harris, TX
Name: Lowell H Heinz lhsheinz@hal-pc.org
Date: 2001-09-16
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: Interactive List Archives
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
I have spent 2-3 years trying to find my Great-Grandfather Charles E Cook Jr. I thought I had looked under every rock but I lucked on to some family information that he and his brother had been in the Civil War. After some detailed searching I was able to find a list of Iowans that had served and lo and behold I found a detailed list showing rank and unit. This led me to a cemetery for a City (Lester) that is no longer in existance. I about fell over to find a number of Cook's in that cemetery including my Great-Grandfather.In trying to find his father,you would think he would be a Sr. Now I believe his name was actually John R Cook. Anyway this was my first really success in my genealogy work and now refuels my efforts to continue.

 



I live in (City / County): Houston, Harris, TX
Name: Lowell H Heinz lhsheinz@hal-pc.org
Date: 2001-09-16
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: Interactive List Archives
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
I have spent 2-3 years trying to find my Great-Grandfather Charles E Cook Jr.in Iowa. I thought I had looked under every rock but I lucked on to some family information that he and his brother had been in the Civil War. After some detailed searching I was able to find a list of Iowans that had served and lo and behold I found a detailed list showing rank and unit. This led me to a cemetery for a City (Lester) that is no longer in existance. I about fell over to find a number of Cook's in that cemetery including my Great-Grandfather.In trying to find his father,you would think he would be a Sr. Now I believe his name was actually John R Cook. Anyway this was my first really success in my genealogy work and now refuels my efforts to continue.

 



I live in (City / County): Houston, Harris, TX
Name: Lowell H Heinz lhsheinz@hal-pc.org
Date: 2001-09-16
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: Interactive List Archives
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
I have spent 2-3 years trying to find my Great-Grandfather Charles E Cook Jr.in Iowa. I thought I had looked under every rock but I lucked on to some family information that he and his brother had been in the Civil War. After some detailed searching I was able to find a list of Iowans that had served and lo and behold I found a detailed list showing rank and unit. This led me to a cemetery for a City (Lester) that is no longer in existance. I about fell over to find a number of Cook's in that cemetery including my Great-Grandfather.In trying to find his father,you would think he would be a Sr. Now I believe his name was actually John (Charles) R Cook. Anyway this was my first really success in my genealogy work and now refuels my efforts to continue.

 



I live in (City / County): longview, harrison, TX
Name: cheryl walker txangel3@webtv.net
Date: 2000-05-18
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: Roots Surname List (RSL)
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
I have been hunting for my dad's side of the family for several yrs. I posted queries and then found out I had 2 brothers by my now deceased father. I found my cousin melody and uncle bill after almost giving up. I last saw my dad CHARLES BLANKENSHIP when I was 4yrs old. He moved to CA after my mom divorced him and he left the USAF in 1964. Dad died in 1981 while I was in the USMC stationed in Japan. I did not know I was so close to him while I was in Camp Pendleton CA. I am now planning a trip to visit my new found family this summer. While I am in CA I will visit my dad's grave as well as my grandpa and grandma's grave. I do not remember anyone from this family but when I called Uncle Bill and heard his voice somewhere deep down inside me knew it was them and I felt at peace. I have a need to find my family because of the fact my mom has deserted me and her side of the family have nothing to do with me. I have 2 sons and would like them to know love and a wholeness which comes with having a complete family. I am so thankful for the ROOTSWEB and other links for aideing in helping me in my quest to find my brothers and family.

 



I live in (City / County): Richland Chambers Lake, Navarro, TX
Name: Bonnie L. Bassett-Hazewski lady_of_the_lake@airmail.net
Date: 2000-08-18
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: GenConnect
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
On March 3, 2000 I began my search for my Bassett ancestry by posting a query on the GenForum bulletin board. The verbatim text of my message was, "My brother, father, grandfather, and great grandfather are all William Brainard Bassett. Do you relate?" On April 16, 2000 I received a personal email from Mary Elizabeth Bassett in NY, which is where all of my ancestors hailed from as far as I could go back in time. The verbatim text of her message was, "My grandfather was William Brainard Bassett, born Buffalo, N.Y., May 8, 1871. Married Beatrice May Allen of Dansville, N.Y. in 1887. They had four children - William B. Bassett, Jr., Anna C. Doerner, John B. Bassett,and Florence Bassett (Fox). Beatrice died in 1925. William Brainard remarried - Hannah Mary Summers on August 14, 1934. They had one child, my father - Donald William Bassett, currently residing in Sullivanville, New York. William Brainard died March 25, 1936 and was buried in Riverside Cemetery, Rochester, N.Y., March 28, 1936." The next day Mary and I spoke on the phone, hardly able to contain our emotions, we were so overwhelmed with finding each other. Mary's father, Donald William Bassett, is my grandfather's (William B. Bassett,Sr.) younger brother (same father, different mother)...by 40 years!!!! My grandfather never mentioned Don to us. Long story short, we are getting to know each other by phone, snail mail, email, photographs, and visits. My mother traveled to NY in JUne and met Donald William Bassett and his family. He looks like my grandfather and a bit like my father who, I'm sad to say, passed away last year and never knew of his Uncle Don. Although we've made a loving connection in our Bassett family,I learned from this experience that it is important to question everything. Not all of the info in Mary Beth's message was chronologically correct. John B. Bassett was an uncle to Anna, Florence, Don and William. The fourth child born to William and Beatrice was Clara, who died at two weeks of age. Fortunately, Mary Beth included so much relevant information, that there was no doubt about our common ancestry. May our family grow even more through our combined efforts to uncover the deepest roots!

 



I live in (City / County): TYLER, SMITH, TX
Name: ANDREW DEESE DEESETISD1@AOL.COM
Date: 2001-07-30
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: US Town/County Finder
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
I HAVE NONE

 



I live in (City / County): TYLER, SMITH, TX
Name: ANDREW DEESE DEESETISD1@AOL.COM
Date: 2001-07-30
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: US Town/County Finder
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
I AM LOOKING FOR STORY ABOUT MY FAMILY

 



I live in (City / County): breckenridge, stevens, TX
Name: Dianna Douglas mistxtaz@texasisp.com
Date: 2000-05-26
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: Surname Helper
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
Hell my name is Dianna, I am 35 yrs. old. When i was 15 i placed a beautiful baby girl up for adoption. For over 20 yrs. I have woried, cried myself to sleep, and have been depresed. Until i started my search, all I knew was her bob and town,state. I have been to so many web sites. I regestered with them all, in hopes she would be looking for me to. She was not. One Friday morning I went to a help line, a volenteer wanted to know the county and dob within min she replied to me with a name, Kerry Elizabeth Kramer wow. I knew her name, so there i went to www.publicdata.com. With that info. i got the town,state,and add. where she lives. I called info. of that state and got her phone #. The hardest thing was to make that first call. So many people told me to send a letter, I am a go get em kind of person so a letter was too slow for me. I called 4 times before i reached her, i started the conversation with "before i start a conversation with you can you take down a phone #. Her reply was let me get a pen,"when she took my # I asked if she was Kerry EIizabeth Kramer, yes she said. I then repeated the town,state and dob she said yes that was her. Then I told her my name, and asked her if she had ever heard of that name. It took her only sec. to say that is my birth mothers name. I said " thats me". After a long pause she said wow this is great, I took a deep breath and started to cry. She told me she has wanted to search for me when she grad, collage, but i beat her to it. We talked for awhile and she asked if she could call me back after dinner, with all my heart i wanted that to. It took a life time for the day to pass. At 7:45 the phone rang, with all my wories i answered, to my supprise she was so happy to speek to me. We are now planning a time so we can see each other in person. I can never put into words how i feel, only a mother who has been through the same thing can know how i feel. She wants to meet her 3 brothers, cousins aunts grandparents. So many things to say but cant express myself enough. So never give up, never. I would like to think all who helped with my search. dianna