For the assignment we needed to create a list of immigrate ancestors. Pick one to research, submit our research log and write up a summary of the experience. Here part of what I handed in.
Immigrate Ancestors
The vast majority of my father’s ancestors came to the United States prior to the Revolutionary War. My surname line immigrant ancestor was Capt. Daniel Harris b. 1615 in Hatherup, Gloucestershire, England. He immigrated in 1643 and settled in Rowley, Massachusetts. Most of my ancestors were English and settled in the New England area prior to moving to New York State. With early immigration records being so limited, I decided not to select them for this assignment.
On my mother’s side we are descendants of the German Palatines Immigrants to New York in 1710. There has been a lot of research on that German line. I just need to firm up which branch we descend. The surnames connected with this immigration are Edeli, Scheffer, Seibert, Zipperly, and my Weatherwax (Wiederwachs) line. The rest of my mother’s lines have unknown origins so I’m not ready to research their immigration outside of the United States.
The closest ancestors that came over are actually my husband’s family. His parents Vito (Witold) Zamora and Lucienne Henay emigrated from France in 1949. I had already research this so I was familiar with the records now available on Ancestry.com for them. I found the same records again with nothing new to add.
This leaves me with my closest immigrant ancestors, my 2nd great grandparents, Nils Svensson Osberg (Nelson Siven Osberg) and Anna Jacobsson (Anna Peterson) from Sweden. My father hired a professional researcher to work on this family line many years ago. Therefore, I have never researched it. Their daughter Alice was my great-grandmother and lived until I was almost 11 years old. Therefore, I do remember her. My earliest genealogy treasures were photographs of Nils and Anna and a treadle sewing machine in our home.
My father told me he was stuck trying to find Nils S. Osberg’s immigration records. Every time he asked the family about how he immigrated, he heard a different story, sending him off on a wild goose chase. It was not until he was alone with their immigrant daughter’s husband that he found out the “true” story. He learned he would never locate Nils on a passenger list. He never booked passage; he come over as a crewmember and jumped ship upon arrival. My dad kept looking because who knows if that story is true either, but he could never find the records. Therefore, I did not think I was going to have much of a chance either.
I put Nils name into Ancestry.com and low and behold, their picture appeared. I have the exact same picture of them. I scanned and placed it on my website a number of years ago, and have since edited it. To make sure it is the same picture I compared the blemishes on the photograph and they match. The person that attached my picture to their tree must be a relative. They had already linked documents on Ancestry to their records, so that was helpful.
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The period I believe Nils and Anna immigrated is 1869-1872. That is gap between the last daughter born in Sweden and the next one born in the United States. The ship manifest that appears a definite match is in 1907. Nils appears to be bringing a young boy into the United States from Sweden. That fits a cousin telling me he helped pay for their family members passages. His destination is Schuylerville, New York where I know he was living nearby at the time. For nationality, it lists US Cit, so I assume he naturalized by that time. What really helped was this note “County Court Washington Co. NY Mar 15, 1875”. I think that must be his naturalization date.
I continued to look for records on him and started to follow another Nils Osberg that has a date of naturalization as Oct 28, 1887 in County Court, Kings County, NY. I took down notes on him because I’m really not sure if it’s two different people yet. With the naturalization process, papers can be filed in different courts so he might have used two County Courts.
What I need to do now is order a copy of his naturalization records from the County Court in Washington County, New York. It would be great if it tells us exactly how he arrived in the United States.
The above picture I have in my collection is labelled Nils Osberg but I don't know which gentleman he is. I am thinking he's the one in the middle. What do you think? I have no idea when the picture was taken either. It appears to be recognizing them as immigrants, maybe it was after his naturalization? Nils oldest daughter would have been 9 at the time of his possible naturalization in 1875. By the "graceful" way she is sitting she could be a 9 year old. Ugh! I need The Photo Detective, Maureen Taylor's help on this one.
See ya tomorrow, for tomorrow is always another genealogy day!
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