BBPetura on Twitter

Using Twitter is a fun way to meet genealogists, get tips on new family history resources and record research progress.  And also to follow news media, experts on archaeology and gardening, and more! Unique diary! Here are some of my recent tweets:

9/12/2009

Wisconsin 1875 Census on FamilySearch with index & scans is great! Ancestors Benjamin Church & Sherman A. Bradley in Milwaukee!

RT @Palaeogeek Thirty thousand year-old colored twine found in Georgia:
http://is.gd/37AYC
| Europe that is!

Beautiful day so I enjoyed a visit to Living in the Garden north of #Pullman for fall #flowers, food treats:
http://tiny.cc/LvngInGrdn9

RT @Cherryteatime Condense #genealogy w/geography – Suffolk, Shropshire, Yorkshire ENG, Glarus SWISS, Pomerania, Holstein, Trier GER, more!

My
http://books.google.com/
search – ancestor Ferdinand Hachez did weather observations 1865, helped found a hail insurance company 1870

#Genealogy tip: At least once a year, search for your ancestors in old books & documents at
http://books.google.com/
Great finds possible!

Great idea: search anew for ancestors’ info on their birthday. Thanks @mjnrootdig for #Genealogy tip of the day:
http://tinyurl.com/Bdays9

9/9/2009

RT @jefferymartin Skull has been found that rewrites the history of man —
http://bit.ly/ypKRY
| And woman we presume!

9/7/2009

Try to be a generous genealogy volunteer and help others find their families! See an example at Relative Musings:
http://tiny.cc/RMsng939

Labor Day #genealogy – Ancestor Sherman A. Bradley was a carpenter, then pumpmaker, owned Badger Pump, Milwaukee. Pumps then made of wood!

Labor Day #genealogy – Ancestor John Nicholas Luehr was stonemason & farmer in late 1800s. His hard work meant two sons could go to college!

Labor Day #genealogy – Ancestor Benjamin Church, pioneer carpenter in 1835 in Milwaukee, from Ulster County, NY:
http://tiny.cc/BnjChurch35

Labor Day #genealogy – Both of my grandmothers, Beatrice and Lucille, were teachers before marrying: one home ec, one elementary school.

Labor Day #genealogy – William Henry Luehr was a newspaper publisher, a school teacher & principal in Wisconsin:
http://tiny.cc/WHLuehr

Labor Day #genealogy – Martin Friedrich Bruss came to Milwaukee from Cammin, Pomerania, to continue family tradtion of ship building, 1839.

Labor Day #genealogy fun: tweet about the labors of your ancestors – any of their occupations a suprise? a family tradition? Please RT!

9/6/2009

Amazed at my Hachez ancestors’ migrations: Brugge, Belgium, to Bremen, Germany, to village of New Holstein, Wisconsin, in 1854!

Just finished replying to a distanct cousin in Germany about the Hachez family of 3 who came to Wisconsin in 1854:
http://tiny.cc/FHHachez

Note: The hash # tags and at @ tags you see above don’t work outside Twitter! You can find those tweeting by putting their Twitter handle after
http://twitter.com/
. Mine, for example, is
http://twitter.com/BBPetura
.  Please follow me!

Benjamin Church House – Milwaukee

 Photograph by Barbara Bradley Petura

An exceptional way to be in touch with your family history is to visit locations important to your ancestors’ lives.  July 2007 gave me an opportunity to do just that. 

The place was the Benjamin Church House, located since 1938 in Estabrook Park, Shorewood. The house was built about 1844 in an area then known as Kilbourntown. That name came from Bryon Kilbourn, land owner and founder about 1835 of the pioneer town just west of the Milwaukee River.

Kilbourntown was one of three towns that merged in 1846 to create the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The others were Juneautown east of the river and Walker’s Point to the south.

In those days, the Church house was on Fourth Street at the intersection with Court Street, between Cherry and Galena streets. The site in the pioneer era is described as up a hill overlooking a tamarack swamp near the river.

Benjamin Church, my ggg-grandfather, was one of the earliest settlers in Milwaukee. He arrived in November 1835 via Chicago from his birthplace in Ulster County, New York.

A pioneer carpenter and master builder, he brought the Greek Revival style from the East Coast to the young city of Milwaukee — and applied it to construction of his own family home. With its four graceful columns on the front and other distinctive features, the house gives the feeling of a small Greek temple.

That Greek Revival style, combined with the use of hand-hewn lumber and Cream City bricks stamped with the date 1844 and initials of the brick maker, made the house worth saving, restoring and moving to a new location. The house today is an intimate museum of life in Milwaukee in the 1850s, with the furnishings giving a sense of what life was like in those days.

Standing in the cozy house, I imagined Benjamin Church returning home, up the hill to the house, climbing the steps to the porch and enjoying the modest elegance of the Doric columns, then entering the house right into the small living room.  A fire crackling in the fireplace and the sounds of his children would have greeted him at the end of a day’s work.

His wife Permilia would likely have been in the kitchen cooking dinner, helped by oldest daughters Ann Maria and Ann Augusta. I imagine the younger children doing their chores, or their studies, or perhaps playing.

Known to her family as Hannah, Ann Maria married Sherman A. Bradley on January 6, 1859. They too lived in the Church House and their son Jesse Charles Bradley was born there June 22, 1866.

A special treasure awaited me in the back room of the house, where a display board told the history of house and of Benjamin Church himself. There on display was his photograph! See it on the page with his biography.

The Benjamin Church House, also called the Kilbourntown House, is open to the public free during the summer. A docent or guide is on hand to talk about the house, its history and its significance in conveying a vivid snapshot of early Milwaukee history.

Check with the Milwaukee County Historical Society for the hours the house is open. It is worth a visit!

Essay and photograph by Barbara Ann Bradley Petura, July/August 2007.

Surnames of My Ancestors

My own ancestors will turn up in Relative Musings occasionally as I illustrate points or seek to explore their lives and influence.  This listing will track of those references, which can also be found via the search engine. Surnames I am researching include:

• Father’s paternal side: Abernethy, Baker, Bradley, Church, Leaming, Simons, Speich, Stocker, Twitchell
• Father’s maternal side: Becker, Booth, Bruce (Bruss), Ebrey, and Stiemke
• Mother’s paternal side: Conger, Cram, Morey, Palmerton, Sharp and Woolverton
• Mother’s maternal side: Boie (Boje), Carstens, Groth, Hachez, Luehr (Luhr), Suhr, and Tonner

Mentions of family discoveries in my Finding Family for Free postings or other entries and the date they appeared include:

Abernethy/Abernathy, paternal lineage

• Lorrin Abernethy, ggggg-grandmother, June 21, 2009

Baker, paternal lineage

• Hannah Baker Church, gggg-grandmother, Nov. 17, 2006

Boie, maternal lineage

• Nicholas Boie, ggg-grandfather, Nov. 19, 2006

Booth, paternal lineage

• Grace Booth, great-grandmother, January 25, 2009

Bradley, paternal lineage

• Aaron Bradley, ggggg-grandfather, June 21, 2009
• Horace Bradley, gggg-grandfather, June 21, 2009
• Leaming Hawkins Bradley, ggg-grandfather, June 21, 2009
• Sherman A. Bradley, gg-grandfather, Nov. 22, 2006 and Aug. 13, 2007 and June 21, 2009
• Jesse Charles Bradley, great-grandfather, Nov. 22, 2006
• Elizabeth and Robert Bradley, aunt and uncle, March 1, 2007 and March 2, 2007
• Beatrice Jane Bruce Bradley, wife of Harry E. Bradley, grandmother, January 25, 2009

Bruss / Bruce, paternal lineage

• August Friedrich Bruss / Bruce, gg-grandfather, August 31, 2008
• Beatrice Jane Bruce , grandmother, January 25, 2009
• Maria Sophia Stiemke Bruss, ggg-grandmother, August 31, 2008
• Martin Friedrich Bruss, ggg-grandfather, August 31, 2008
• Martin P. Bruce, great-grandfather, January 25, 2009

Church, paternal lineage

• Caleb Church, gggg-grandfather, Nov. 17, 2006
• Benjamin Church, ggg-grandfather, Nov. 17, 2006, Nov. 22, 2006 and Aug. 13, 2007
• Permilia Church, maiden name unknown, ggg-grandmother, Nov. 22, 2006 and Aug. 13, 2007
• Ann Maria “Hannah” Church Bradley, gg-grandmother, Nov. 22, 2006 and August 13, 2007

 Groth, maternal lineage

• Anna Margretha Groth Luehr, gg-grandmother, Nov. 19, 2006

Hachez, maternal lineage

• Clara Hachez Luehr, great-grandmother, Nov. 12, 2006
• Ferdinand Hachez, gg-grandfather, Nov. 19, 2006
• Ferdinand Hachez, ggg-grandfather, Nov. 19, 2006
• Ferdinand Hachez, ggg-grandfather, May 24, 2008

Leaming, paternal lineage

• Jane Leaming, 8th great-grandmother, June 21, 2009

Luehr (Luhr), maternal lineage

• Luhr family arrival in New York in 1858, Oct. 31, 2006
• John Luehr, Nov. 19, 2006
• William Henry Luehr, great-grandfather, Oct. 28, 2006, Nov. 19, 2006, Jan. 15, 2007

 Sharp, maternal lineage

• Isaac Sharp, gggg-grandfather, Feb. 11, 2007

Stiemke, paternal lineage

• Maria Sophia Stiemke Bruss, ggg-grandmother, August 31, 2008

Tonner, maternal lineage

• Cecilia Tonner Boie, ggg-grandmother,  Nov. 19, 2006

 Woolverton, maternal lineage

• Mary Woolverton Sharp, gggg-grandmother, Feb. 11, 2007

Women are recorded with their maiden and married names, where available, but are indexed primarily under their maiden name. Click on the date to go to and read the entry.