First Family of PA Comes to Life!

This week, two exciting things came together for a really interesting week. 

LiveMemoryTM 

First, Geneamusings (Randy Seaver) announced a new feature available on MyHeritage APP called "LiveMemoryTM " that uses AI to make a 5 second video out of a photo. It's more than just animating there is significant movement. Right now it is free to try and I tried it on 3 photos so far. There are problems, of course, but it is fascinating and really brings the people to life! I tried it on Jim's 3rd great-grandfather, Jacob Breyvogel/Breyfogle who was born in Berks County, PA in 1805. This photo (based on his necktie and wide lapels of his suit) was taken between 1860 and 1870. He died in 1871, so that is the latest this could have been.  Try the video and tell me what you think!!

Jacqueline_Wolfe shared this photo 

on Ancestry.com in 2016.

First Families of PA

Second, I learned about an opportunity to record Jim's lineage through the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania. It's not really a Lineage Society, more like an opportunity to record and allow others to learn about their history. The program is First Families of PA and they have four "levels" of membership based on the time frame for when your ancestors arrived to PA. 

Wedding Announcement in the Bloomsburg, PA
Newspaper "The Star of the North" 1861

You can probably tell where this is going. Yes, I spent about 15 hours putting together all of the documents required to "prove" Jim's family back to Jacob Breyvogel who fits early in the Keystone and Cornerstone (1791-1865) category. The packet ended up being nearly 50 sheets of paper that includes everything from birth/marriage/death certificates for those that existed for both members of the couple at each generation to newspaper clippings when records aren't available, like this newspaper clipping for John H. Breyfogle and Elizabeth Harriet Santee in 1861. Apparently getting names wrong in the newspaper is not a new thing....Driefagle is Breyfogle. Yep!

This is John and Elizabeth(Santee)
Breyfogle in their younger years.
Photo provided by Holly Prescott
in 2014 in Ancestry.com

The documentation to Jacob's father, Daniel Breyfogle (1775-1849), is not yet to the level the society accepts and although I have documentation that puts the Breyfogle's in PA as early as 1744, proving the connection between generations can be a little tricky. I will work on it, once I know that this first application was accepted! 

Jim's grandfather (Russel Pealer Breyfogle) and his mother (Mary Ann Pealer) were born in Michigan, but everyone else in this tree were Pennsylvania residents. None of these family names were yet to be listed among the First Families, so I have a little work (and investment, each application costs $75) ahead of me, but it is my goal to prove them. 

Pioneer Certificates

I don't know if every state has some sort of equivalent to First Families or Pioneer families, but Michigan does, too! In an earlier blog (Michigan, my Michigan) I shared that my mother's family has every grandparents and their ancestors coming (or being born) in Michigan back to at least the 1860s. Michigan has only two levels: Pre-statehood (prior to 1837) and First Families.

After finishing Jim's PA First Families I decided that I would work on an easy line for me in the Michigan Pioneers. Again, none of my family names are already recorded so I have lots to choose from. I decided to go with the Stoddard family, my mother's maternal grandmother's side. This took me less than 10 hours and the application fee is only $25. I'm not sure if I am getting faster or because I have already submitted to DAR on this family I knew I had acceptable proof. 

So, the application is submitted for Rodman Stoddard and Mary Matteson as a couple and we'll see in about 4-6 weeks what the Michigan Genealogical Society has to say about my application. 

Mary Matteson Stoddard
(1809-1893)

Rodman and Mary have an interesting story, they actually met in 1822 in Canada when Mary's father (Epaphras Matteson) kept moving west with his family and Rodman was into lumbering. With Michigan opening up, Rodman ends up buying land in Michigan (in Detroit) and Epaphras buys in Ann Arbor around the same time in 1824. When Epaphras dies in May of 1828 and his wife about 6 months later Mary at 19 is left an orphan. Rodman and Mary get married a few short months after. 

The most interesting thing that I found while digging in to the documents were the Probate Records for Rodman Stoddard who died in 1853. Mary lives for another 40 years a widow spending her last decade in Reed City, where my great-grandmother (who I knew!) knew her.

I tried my hand at transcribing these Probate hand written documents from 1853 which clearly show that Henry Clay Stoddard was the son of Rodman and Mary and along with the headstone of Rodman and Mary I could prove their relation. Lots of fun!

Saturday Night Fun--My G-G-Grandmother Emma Amanda Sackmann

Emma Amanda Sackmann
Hillman Schmidt
(1862-1951)

Genea-Musings Blog posts prompts every Saturday encouraging followers to write in their own blogs. This week’s prompt, “Write a 100-word Life Sketch of your 2x Great-Grandparents."

I chose Emma Amanda Sackmann, my father’s maternal great-grandmother. One of the reasons I chose her is because my father knew her well and she was a beloved grandmother to my grandmother. Emma (Granny) actually lived with my father’s family for a period of time when he was young and she was the one who raised my grandmother after her parents divorced and my grandmother’s mother was committed and eventually died at Greystone Psychiatric Hospital in Morris Plains, NJ.

The Life Sketch of Emma Sackmann

We were encouraged to use AI to generate the sketches, so I am testing the waters. I gave ChatGPT three screenshots of my Ancestry Family tree timeline of my great-great-grandmother along with the prompt, “Using the following three images with text on them about Emma Amanda Sackmann, please write a 100-word life sketch about her.” This is what it came up with:

“Emma Amanda Sackmann was born on June 26, 1862, in Germania, Potter County, Pennsylvania, to John Heinrich Sackmann and Christina Dunker. She married Johannes Wilheim Hillmann in 1882, and they had two children, Herman and Louise. Emma lived primarily in New York City and Brooklyn, with occupations and residences changing over time, reflecting her role as a wife, mother, and, later, a widow. She experienced the deaths of many family members, including her husband in 1906 and her daughter in 1938. Emma eventually relocated to Brattleboro, Vermont, where she passed away on February 2, 1951, at age 88.”

Given only 100 words (well 98, in this case) there isn’t a whole lot you can say about someone, I guess this provides a very appropriate (if not bland) life sketch.

Extension of Her Life Sketch

Some of the things that were not highlighted in this brief sketch is that she was the first of her parents’ five children to be born in the United States. They emigrated from Germany in July 1856 on the ship John Herman from Hamburg as a group of 9. Her parents, Johann and Christina (Dunker) and her three older siblings Louise (4 years), Carl (2 years), and Pauline (2 months), and 4 other family members, Anna (18 year–unknown relationship), Johann (15 years–unknown relationship), and Heinrich and Catherine (possibly brother and wife). When they arrived in the US they lived in Brooklyn but then invested in the Pennsylvania (German) Land Association and moved to Germania (Abbott), Potters County, Pennsylvania to be among a small community of German immigrants. Both Emma and her younger brother were born there. 

I visited Abbott/Germania a couple of years ago and it is a beautiful country with rolling hills and in some places steeply sloping land. The immigrants were intending to farm the land but it was not going to be easy. Emma’s father died around 1870 which probably prompted the family to move back to Brooklyn. 

Emma married Johann Hillmann as a 19 year old. He was recorded being a salesman and a “liquor dealer” and owned a bar at one point. At 43 years old in 1906, she was widowed and lived alone in 1910. She married Otto Fred Schmidt between 1910 and 1915 and in the 1915 NY Census they have her granddaughters living with them. Otto died in 1924 leaving her a widow, again, but still raised her granddaughters until they were out on their own. In her later years, she resided in Vermont mostly with Ruth, her granddaughter who was not married at the time.

My perspective might be influenced by my father’s memories of her, but in researching her life I have come across several facts/observations which suggest to me that she was a very welcoming and nurturing person. Beside taking in her granddaughters and raising them into adulthood, I found in 1892 in addition to her two children, her niece Lulu Steinem is living with them and in 1900 a different niece Vera Henno is living with them and you can see in this photo Vera is reclining back and draping her arm over Emma’s knee. I’m guessing she was a beloved aunt as well as grandmother!

When I think about all she endured and experienced in her 88 years from 1862 to 1951, I am inspired by the fortitude she must have had. Maybe it was the model she saw in her own mother who was widowed at the same age with 5 children? Regardless, reflecting on Emma's life helps put my own challenges in perspective and allows me to appreciate what I do have to make my life easier…like, this computer and internet, for example!