February 25, 2019 at 4:32 p.m.
Northwoods Genealogical Society grows as interest in family history increases
Northwoods Genealogical Society grows as interest in family history increases
By Kayla Thomason-
The Northwoods Genealogical Society held a question-and-answer session Feb. 19 at the Rhinelander District Library as part of an effort to assist those who are interested in learning more about their ancestry.
This was the group's second question-and-answer session. The first drew 10 people. Eighteen were present for Tuesday's discussion, many of them armed with plenty of questions.
Augden Windelborn, chair of the Northwoods Genealogical Society, led the session.
"I find that genealogy is an activity that people in this area are extremely interested in and more and more people are becoming interested in them," he said, noting that the regular monthly group has rapidly grown to 18 members.
To accommodate the growing interest, Windelborn said the group is hoping to hold Q&A sessions every three months or so.
He started the Feb. 19 session by listing the various internet sites (Family Search, Ancestry.com, USGenWeb, and more, which are listed on the group's website) and explaining how to store the information collected, hurdles he and his wife have come up against in their own searches, what types of records can be found and more.
"If they can get started they'll get hooked, and then as they do it they'll learn more and more about how to do it and then they'll come back with some more questions," Windelborn said.
"It's fascinating to start to get into, you don't have to commit a lot of monetary resources," he said of genealogy research. "We always joke about it's a great thing to do in January when it's 20 below outside, you can go online or go to the library to read or whatever.We have lots of good resources in the area and it's fun to learn more about history and where your family fit into that history."
Cheryl Heimerl enjoyed the Q-and-A.
"It's great, it's very interesting, great information," she said.
Heimerl said she will definitely start delving into her own family history. She has some information from relatives and is hoping to fill in some gaps.
Mike Tolvstad has been attending the regular meetings and has been digging up some fascinating tidbits of information about his ancestors.
"You learn something new every time you come to a meeting, there's so much resources out there that you don't know starting out that that's why the group is here to help with that," he said.
A relative recently reached out to him with information about their family's history and he caught the genealogy bug from there.
"I actually had a cousin contact me that I haven't seen for over 50 years and she has been doing genealogy now for a little over a year and she contacted me and started asking questions about the family because her parents had divorced when she was young so our part of the family she didn't get to see for all these years, so it was neat to make that tie back," Tolvstad explained.
His cousin had photos but couldn't identify who was in them. Tolvstad gave her the missing pieces. The family also plans to meet up again now that they have connected again.
In the past few months, he learned his great-grandfather was in Andersonville during the Civil War. According to www.history.com, Andersonville, officially called Camp Sumter, was a military prison in Georgia for captured Union soldiers. It was used from Feb. 1864 until the end of the American Civil War in 1865. It was known for unhealthy conditions and high death rate, which resulted in approximately 13,000 Union prisoner fatalities.
Tolvstad has done a DNA test through Ancestry.com, and confirmed that his ancestors came from central Norway.
"I didn't know when or what time period, now I know it was between 1825 and 1850 that they came over," he said.
After doing the DNA test, he started seeing little leaves popping up on his online family tree, indicating there were others that shared family with him. This has led to another interesting discovery.
"We realized that our last name probably isn't what we thought it was, that it was actually they adopted that name because that's where they came from in Norway when they came over rather than using the family name," he explained. "Some of the members kept the family name, some of them used the location they came from."
He also learned that the brothers came over, and one kept the family name of Hansen (or Hanson, he couldn't remember the spelling off the top of his head), while the other took the village name they came from.
For more information on the Northwoods Genealogical Society visit https://sites.google.com/site/northwoodsgensoc or email northwoodsgensociety@gmail.com.
Kayla Thomason may be reached at kayla@rivernewsonline.com.
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