Chris Pattillo is collecting "Quarantine Quests," stories of genealogical projects and discoveries made by our members while sheltering at home due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. This story is from CGS Member Ron
Madson.
Ron Madson’s Quarantine Quests story began in the Summer of
2019 when he traveled to France and Switzerland to attend the Women’s Soccer
World Cup. While there he visited a cousin, Claire Daams, who is an attorney in
Bern and happens to be conversant in seven languages, including Old
German. Recognizing an opportunity, Ron asked Claire if she might help him with
his second-great-grandfather Niklaus Glaüs. Ron had
attempted to read the records that are available online at the
Bern StateArchives but with little success.
Claire agreed and within minutes had identified Ron’s second-
and third-great-grandparents. Even better, she gave Ron a personalized lesson
in how to read Old German. Ron refers to the script as nothing more
than "squiggles" but with Claire’s help, he quickly began to be able to decode
the information contained in the documents. These records typically include the
basics – birth, death, and marriage. Marriage records sometimes include the bride and groom's places of origin, the names of their parents, and sometimes the
dates that the parents were married. Some death records include the date and place of birth. Some do
not include date of birth, but include exact age at death: years, months, and days. But many of the older death records do not contain this vital information, although they may have "extras" added by the priest or officiant. "I try very hard to read this 'extra stuff,'" Ron says. "And it kills me that ninety percent of the time I can’t, while knowing that
beyond a shadow of a doubt, there is 'good stuff' there."
After his lesson, Claire asked if Ron would like to visit the
village where his ancestors were from – “a genealogist’s fairy tale come true,” he says.
Ron’s ancestors lived in a small village in the foothills of the Alps in the
Interlaken District of Bern. While there is no way to know the exact home or
farm where his ancestors lived, Ron did recount the pleasure of eating lunch in
a local restaurant right on the lake. He ordered fish that had been caught in
the lake and knew that his ancestors had fished in that same lake generations
before.
Fast-forward nearly a year and now while Ron is quarantined
at home he is working feverishly to find, decipher, and document new ancestors
and more records. Ron reports that he has added hundreds of new ancestors since
he learned to decode the Old German text. Each time he thinks he has found a
new ancestor he says “I look for other records to shed light on the found record, to
prove or disprove that this is the correct record. Depending on the
circumstances, the names, area, year(s), record information, what, and where I
look varies.”
For each new person he tries to find birth, marriage and
death records. He then enters the data into his Family Tree Maker
genealogy program. Like most of us, he makes copies of every document he finds.
He then imports the digital file into Adobe Photoshop and extends the page at
the bottom and top to add research notes. At the top he includes the name of the document and a summary of
what it says. At the bottom, he adds his source information.
Ron has identified the two oldest living people on this line: Florine (Lee) Glaus, now 93 and living in South Dakota, and Clare Leone Glaus, who is 102 years old and lives in Seattle. He
was able to interview both of them and has fifteen hours of recorded interviews plus stories,
documents and photographs.
When I asked, “Have you established a particular routine for
doing this work during the shutdown?” Ron explained, “my wife and I have
dinner, then we watch a movie, after which I spend several hours each day –
sometimes into the wee hours – working on my genealogy.” Ron is also planning
to listen to a podcast to learn more about how to read Old German so he can
continue his research on a different family line.
Have you made any big discoveries while you have been staying at home? Let us know and we will share your story. You can reach me at cpattillo@californiaancestors.org
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