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English Royalty?

  • Anderson
Henry I of England

I recently found out that one or more of our ancestors (for Anderson descendants) are possibly descended from royalty. I did not believe it at first because I’d already seen a lot of ridiculous claims in the familysearch.org tree. But looking into it more, it does get believable. There are several books about royal ancestors of American immigrants and several of our ancestors are in those books. Today we are going to learn about Christopher Branch.

Christoper Branch has a very well documented history. Why is that? Well, Christopher Branch is our ancestor and also the third great grandfather of President Thomas Jefferson, and Presidents’ ancestries are generally well researched. We have common ancestors with other presidents too: Harry Truman, Barack Obama, Lyndon Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, and Vice President Dick Cheney. Others are claimed but good evidence is not there.

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Leslie Renner and World War I

  • Brenner

Maybe it was Veteran’s Day, or maybe it was my brother sending me more materials from Carolina (Brenner) Renner which included letters written home when her fiancee Leslie was in World War I. Whatever it was, I decided to see what I could find out about Lesley and World War I. The photo at the right is Leslie ready to go to war.

He spent some time training in New Mexico and then at Camp Kearny, California. This is determined by letters he wrote from those two places to family. There is little in his military records except when he left for Europe and when he returned and was discharged. He left the United States 8 Aug 1918 on the British ship Balmoral Castle. He was back in the United States by 18 July 1919 and returned on the U.S. President Grant. The materials we had included letters, postcards, and photographs. Some of the photographs were purchased and some appeared to be snapshots.

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Virginia: The Melting Pot

I am constantly amazed at the diversity of mother’s ancestors. Arriving in America from as early as the early 1600s, they were English, Scottish, Scots-Irish, Dutch, German, French, Welsh, and maybe one Native American. They came together in what I’m calling Greater Virginia.1 The other colonies don’t seem to have had this much diversity, with Pennsylvania and little New Jersey may be being the most similar.

“The “melting pot” began to boil in the colonial period, so effectively that Gov. William Livingston, three-fourths Dutch and one-fourth Scottish, described himself as an Anglo-Saxon. As the other elements mingled with the English, they became increasingly like them; however, all tended to become different from the inhabitants of “the old country.” By 1763 the word “American” was commonly used on both sides of the Atlantic to designate the people of the 13 colonies.”2

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Visiting Friends and Relatives

I recently ran across this newspaper clipping and thought others might enjoy it. This was published in the Olathe Mirror on Mar 25, 1920. Although I never remember going to Olathe, it is only about 30 miles from Riverside. Carolina Renner was the youngest child of Louisa Mary Truskey and John Peter Brenner. She was the baby of the family, born when her mother was 49, 24 years after the first child Bertha.

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The Groh Family

JN. The GROH Famly. Two typewritten pages (incomplete) document found in the possessions of my mother Ruby (Anderson) Klamm. Origin unknown. It contains a number of interesting stories about the family. I have made comments in italic font preceded with my initials JN. The genealogy is confusing with so many people named Christoph and Peter, but I think my analysis of their error in ancestry is correct. All of these people are descended from Peter Groh (1753-) and Eva Katharina Fry (1777-) but I believe sometimes by different paths than described here. This is a common kind of error, especially when the same names duplicated in every family. If you are not interested in the details of the ancestry, just enjoy the history and stories.

During the 1840s. Christoph Groh (b. 1796 14 Nov 1795-d. January 5, 1853), his brother Peter Groh III (b. 1786 7 May 1788-d 18 Dec 1846), and their families over the course of several years immigrated to America from their place of birth Rheingoenheim, Bavaria then under the rule of King Maximilian.

JN. Both immigrated 27 Jun 1843 on the Baltimore to New York. Christoph came with some of his children. Peter Groh came with wife Maria, Heinrich, Christoph, Michel. Some other of Peter’s children were adults and also came to America. This is the same ship as the Brenners arrived on.

Christoph and Peter III were the sons and grandsons of Peter Groh II (b, 1753) and Peter Groh I (b. 1723) farmers from Rheingoenheim. They first settled near Parkville, Missouri along the Clay and Platte County line.

Neuhofen map from 1790

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The Groh Family Comes to America

I recently found an incomplete undated document of unknown origin in my mother’s papers entitled The Groh Family which interested me enough to take a closer look at the Groh family.

The sailing ship Baltimore arrived in New York on 27 June 1843 with a number of people who were on their way to Platte County, Missouri or nearby. Among the passengers was the Heinrich Brenner and his wife Susannah Hoffmann and family, which is described in a previous post. Also on that ship were Christof Groh (1795-1853) and daughter Eva Groh (our ancestor) who married John Klamm in 1844. Her mother had apparently died before the trip. The other children arriving on that ship were Philipp 26, Peter 23, Daniel 15, Anna 18.

Port of New Orleans in 1855
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Dessie Ellen (Kimsey) Anderson

  • Kimsey

Dessie Ellen Kimsey was born April 11, 1896 in Platte County, Missouri. In 1900 census, taken on June 22, 1900, her father, Thomas Frankly Kimsey was listed as a widower, so her mother, Sarah Ellen Spencer, died before that date. Dessie was 4 years old. Then in January 1903 her father died, leaving her an orphan at the age of 6. In the 1910 census we find her living with Joseph Wilson, the father of Lewis Wilson who married Dessie’s aunt Melissa Kimsey.

Dessie and daughter Grace (Anderson) Borgmier

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The Scotch Irish and the American Revolution

In my genealogy journey I have noticed something about the American history. My maternal ancestors immigrated to Virginia and Pennsylvania. It became clear to me that history was written by New Englanders because the early days in Virginia and the southern Appalachians are not very well documented. After a while I discovered (recognized) my Scotch-Irish ancestors and started reading about them and learned the amazing secret that without the Scotch-Irish the Revolutionary War would probably not have succeeded.

Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, 1775
Oil painting by John Turnbull completed in 1786

This blog post is about the Scotch-Irish (or Ulster Scots or Scots-Irish) and their significant contribution to America during the Revolutionary War.

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Recipes

I thought for the holidays it might be fun to write about a few family recipes. So I’ve decided to remind people about the Brenner Ridge recipe booklet, offer some recipes from my grandma Elizabeth (Brenner) Klamm, Aunt Carolina (Brenner) Renner, and a recipe from a cousin in honor of my mema Dessie (Kimsey) Anderson.

First, if you are interested in old recipes, I encourage you to download and look through the Brenner Ridge recipe booklet. My husband scanned it and I put it together and OCRed it, so you can read and copy and search the booklet. It has some traditional German recipes and some that were “modern” at the time it was written, but are now also old. Besides the recipes I’m going to put in this post, one of my favorites is the recipe for the all-important pickles, always on the table before meals when Grandma had company. Also hand-written into this copy is a recipe for Mexican Wedding Cakes from Carolina (Brenner) Renner, because she knew I liked them so much.

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John Ratliff – Mystery Life

  • Anderson

If you are descended from Samuel Anderson, you are descended from John Ratliff (ca 1805-1847), my third great grandfather.

It seems that when you “go west young man” you get forgotten back home. [Footnote the quote below re brick wall] So when someone decides to write down the names of the children of your parents, well, you just aren’t there! So John Ratliff moves to Platte County Missouri and apparently pretty promptly dies. Who was he? Who was his wife?

It was all about land…
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