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Ridge Recipes

Ridge Recipes, published by the Evening Circle of St. Matthew’s Evangelical and Reformed Church, Riverside, Missouri, in 1954, is now available in PDF format.

I received my copy from my Aunt Carolina Brenner Renner on the occasion of my (first) marriage in 1961. My favorite recipes are the German ones, dishes that Grandma and Aunt Carolina made. I long ago copied out my favorite recipes, and meanwhile, the book has been aging fast in the Texas heat, so it was now or never… The result is still a bit messy but I think all of the recipes are readable.

This copy also has Aunt Carolina’s notes plus her recipe for Mexican Wedding Cakes. Some of my other favorites are German Style Summer Pickles, Hot Potato Salad (with or without greens), Grandma’s coffee cake, cream puffs.

An aside about the coffee cake. We lived in Hamburg, Germany, for a couple of years and their butterkuchen was just like Grandma’s coffeecake except they put slivered almonds on top.

You can download it here (and it is also listed on my Resources page). The first version is complete as published, in the second version I have deleted the advertising pages.
http://nichollsfamily.us/resources/ridgerecipes.pdf
http://nichollsfamily.us/resources/ridgerecipes-noads.pdf

Migrations

  • Kimsey

“There is no one that wanders but what wants to wander further”

This post is about ancestors and relatives of the descendants of Dessie Kimsey Anderson. I’ve been working on understanding their migrations. Over and over our ancestors moved from one place to another. The Anderson/Kimsey families’ American story begins in Virginia. From there they moved to Georgia or North Carolina or Kentucky or Tennessee. Then they went to Missouri. The early ones went to Howard County, on the Missouri River, about in the middle of the state. Then after the Platte Purchase (1836), to that part of Missouri, or Clay County would have been available for settling before that. Not our ancestors, but many of their relatives moved on to Oregon or California. Our ancestors and their relatives tended to be on the early wave of such migrations, often traveling and living in the dangerous frontier.

Wilderness Road
Along the Wilderness Road

We do not have stories about our ancestors making any of these trips, but here is a story about a cousin of an ancestor of ours who migrated to similar places as our ancestors did.

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How did they get to Missouri?

  • Brenner

Heinrich Brenner, his wife Suzanna and his children arrived in New York in 1843. How did they get to Platte County, Missouri from New York City, a distance of over 1200 miles on modern roads?

They arrived in New York on 27 Jun 1843 on the bark Baltimore (a sailing ship) sailing from Le Havre, France. In this post I will discuss how they might have traveled from New York to Platte County, Missouri. Why they might have come and what it was like on the sailing ship crossing the Atlantic around 1843 will be discussed in later posts.

New York City, South Street from Maiden Lane, ca. 1834
New York City, South Street from Maiden Lane, ca. 1834
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My Huguenot Ancestors: Pierre Morriset and Elizabeth Faure

Pierre Morriset, a Huguenot, immigrated in 1700, arriving from London on the ship Mary and Ann. Also on that ship was Elizabeth Faure and her mother Mary Ann (Chastain) Faure.1.   Pierre later married Elizabeth Faure.

If you are a descendant of Samuel Anderson, you are also a descendant of Pierre Morriset and Elizabeth Faure.

After years of persecution in France and then life in exile, they were finally on their way to a new permanent home. “The first ship was the “Mary and Ann” with Capt. George Haves that took 13 weeks crossing the Atlantic. It arrived at Hampton on 23 July 1700 with 118 men, 59 wives and girls and 38 children.”2

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The Brenner Family 1843-1990

A wonderful resource for descendants of Henry and Susanna Brenner is “The Brenner Family 1843-1990” compiled by Carol Chamberlin Brenner and privately published in 1990.

The story starts with Henry (Henrich) Brenner and his wife Susanna Elizabeth Hoffman and their eight children who immigrated in 1843 from Neuhofen, Germany, and settled in Platte County, Missouri.

This book is now available as a searchable PDF which can be downloaded here:
http://nichollsfamily.us/resources/The_Brenner_Family_1843-1990.pdf

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Samuel Crowley and the First Battle of the Revolutionary War

Samuel Crowley (~1741-1774), my fifth great grandfather, was killed in the first battle of the American Revolution at Point Pleasant, now West Virginia, on October 10, 1774. I chose Samuel Crowley for the first post because I read over and over that he was the first casualty of the Revolutonary War. However, after spending a long time trying to find evidence for this, I concluded that this was almost certainly not true (see below).

He was, however, killed on that day and his name is on the monument at the battle site. The battle in question is called Dunmore’s War or the Battle of Point Pleasant.).1.

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Welcome!

  • General

This blog is for histories and stories that I found about my ancestors. My paternal grandparent’s surnames were KLAMM and BRENNER and were German origin. My maternal grandparent’s surnames were ANDERSON and KIMSEY. They came to northern Missouri from Virginia, so I’m calling them the southerners. Most people coming to these pages will be related to only some of the people I write about, but I hope you enjoy the stories nonetheless.

Germany and Virginia

My German ancestors came from near Mannheim on the Rhine (the left blue line in the Germany image). My southern ancestors came to Virginia and moved west, finally to Missouri.

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