“Family Archaeologist” explores a century of family letters, diaries, and artifacts, and how they illuminate history and our shared humanity. To get an overview of the blog, click: “Welcome to Family Archaeologist”
LATEST BLOG POSTS
Central Park, NY 1911. I’ve arrived!
New York Central Park. Lisi sent to Josef after disembarking ship in New York on Sept. 26, 1911. She continues her message from the back onto the front, under the photo, as you can see, above. The ship’s manifest (see last post: An Alien Made Manifest) showed us Lisi Ebner, my grandmother, was headed to [...]
An Alien Made Manifest
Every ship entering the port of New York was required to provide customs officers with comprehensive details of its cargo, passengers, and crew. The “List or Manifest of Alien Passengers” (left) is a snapshot of a single moment—a century the the past. It captures salient details of the 800 or so people who arrived on the [...]
From Ship to American Soil
The Atlantic crossing from Bremerhaven to New York on her ship, Kaiser Wilhelm II, took Lisi a week. Early on, she learned the genre of the types of seafaring craft in which she traveled, and recorded it thus: The big ship is called a Stimer [German phonetic for “steamer”]. The little boat which brings people to the big [...]
Lisi’s “Moveable Feast”
Bremen Postcard from 1911 Bremen, Germany, was the gateway for millions of emigrants from Central and Eastern Europe to American. So it was for my grandparents. Josef had already left for America on New Year’s Eve, 1910, and now was waiting for his sweetheart, Lisi, to join him in Chicago. As we saw in [...]
The Train Journey-Part II—To Catch a Ship
A century ago this summer, my grandmother, Elisabetha (Lisi) Ebner, was heading to America to meet and marry my grandfather, Josef Gartz. Her diary of the trip is often confusing because she intermixes train schedules, recipes, addresses, and meals. (See The Train Journey-Part I), but the important thing to me is that she actually recorded enough details, [...]
The Train Journey—Part I
Train image from a Budapest Post Card Josef sent to Lisi in December, 1910, when he traveled toward Bremen. Lisi’s train probably looked similar It’s a mixed up world in Lisi’s diary. She knew her trip to America would be the a journey of a lifetime, and she wanted to keep track of as [...]
Seasons of Genealogy
Welcome to another Carnival of Genealogy (CoG). It’s an opportunity for the genealogy blogosphere aficionados to strut their stuff on a specific topic. July’s topic is “The Seasons of Genealogy.” I’m approaching it metaphorically. See how my garden of “Family History Discoveries” has bloomed. Assuming spring represents a “beginning,” here’s how I’d lay out the seasons [...]
Farewell, my homeland
Bags packed. Ready to go. Hugs, and tears and kisses all around. “I’ll write as soon as I can,” Lisi says to her father, sisters and brother. “Safe journey,” they say. “Come back to us.” “We’ll miss you so.” I can imagine the scene when my grandmother, Elisabetha (Lisi) Ebner departed to meet her love, my [...]
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