Last maternal great-grandparent: Charles Mulder of Caledonia, Michigan. He was the only great-grandparent I knew–and I adored him.
Luanne and her great-grandfather Charles Mulder
Charles was born Karel Pieter Phillipus Mulder on 6 March 1885 in Goes, Zeeland, Netherlands. On my Ancestry page for Charles, I had posted a link to his birth record, but had not downloaded it. I now downloaded it, added it to his Ancestry page, and put it into a folder for all of his documents.
Amberly is helping me with his naturalization info. I do have a ship record (the Zandaam), so I know two-year-old Charles arrived in the U.S. with his parents and his brother Jan, a baby of one. Jan died very soon after the family immigrated.
In fact, I made the Charles folder because I had not yet done so. To that folder, I added his marriage record, death record, and all the census records that feature Charles: 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940. I also downloaded and added his military registrations for both WWI and WWII.
I was surprised to see that Charles had a social security number. For the sake of dotting all the Is and all that, I ordered his application.
Charles and his wife Clara share a headstone, and I have that photograph. I added it to Ancestry and to the new folder.
I found that I had a copy of Charles’ obituary, so I added it to Ancestry and to the folder on my computer.
Reading over my great-grandfather’s obituary I was shocked to see he only lived to be 82 years old. I was about 12 when he passed away, and I remember feeling frustrated that I was not allowed to attend his funeral since I adored him. But I thought he was about a zillion years old. No, he was elderly, but only 82. That doesn’t even seem old to me today.
Once again, I had sponsored my great-grandfather’s page on Findagrave, but am not managing it. I have submitted a request to transfer management to me, but I suspect as with the others I have mentioned before, that I have asked in the past and been ignored. We will see what happens.
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I’ll be taking a little blog break for a couple of weeks. Hope all is well with you and yours. I also hope that when I begin the search for gaps in my great-greats I don’t get too discouraged!
The Family Kalamazoo 
Hi Luanne,
I enjoy reading your blog. I love what you are doing this year deep diving on each ancestor.
I have been working on my husband’s family and it is a deep dive into Swedish records . It has been really fun learning the new databases and methods needed to find his family. We head to Sweden this summer to spend time with Kjell’s siblings and for a family reunion.
On the side I continue to scan original documents that I have in my mini archive. I just finished some letters that Phil DeKorn wrote home to his parents from WW2. I am sending the originals to Chapman University and the Center for American War Letters Archive. Would you be interested in the pdfs?? Did I send you a copy of the booklet I created on his tour in WW2? Let me know, I can put them in a folder in dropbox to transfer.
Sue
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Sue, yes, you did give me the 35 page booklet! I will post about it eventually, too :). I would LOVE the letter pdfs. I am so glad you are donating them to those places so they can be kept “forever.” I am finding that letters are perhaps the most treasured of all genealogy resources because they show so much more about the individuals than all the “records” one can find. How did you find the best places to give the letters, if I might ask?
What a wonderful time you will have in Sweden. Are you needing a lot of help with the Swedish for your research or have you learned it from your husband?
Have a great break!
As for FindAGrave, I recently found a pretty serious error on the page for a distant cousin who was killed in the Holocaust. The page manager had listed her grandparents as her parents and her uncle as her “beloved brother.” I wrote to the page manager to ask her to edit and make the corrections. Nada. Zilch. Just crickets.
Not that Ancestry has any quality control over info on its own site,but they do have a bit of a reputation as a place to use for genealogy, so I think they should force Findagrave to be more proactive about these issues (I am not sure of their exact connection). That is a terrible mistake. And then to ignore you! Here is what I did and we will see. First I asked the page managers to make changes and to transfer mgmt to me. Then I wrote to Findagrave about the matter. In a reasonable time they wrote back saying they would do so if I give them the info–going back 4 generations. So I emailed them a list last night. We will see!!!
Thanks re the break!
That’s crazy! People can set up pages without having ANY familial connection as far as I’ve seen. GRRRR.
If you get a chance to look at my blog from yesterday before you break from the blogosphere, I’d love your thoughts!
I love that there are people out finding graves and then setting up pages for people. Many of those people would never be recognized by their descendants otherwise. But they can’t view it as a contest to see who gets the most pages. They need to turn them over to family when family shows up.
I will!
I agree! And thanks!
Again, I love what you’re doing. I really need to take a clue from you and start dotting my ‘i’s’ ~ enjoy a break and I hope all is ok 🙂
Thanks, Sharon. It’s very rewarding filling in the blanks. Eventually, when I go as far back as I can, I will move to the siblings of the direct descendants. Woot! (Yes, we’re ok, thanks for asking)
Enjoy your two weeks off, Luanne!
Thanks, Clare!
Such a shame about Jan. Enjoy your break.
I do wonder if the ship had something to do with his death.
It was certainly a tough trip for a little one
And thank you!
Great idea, Luanne, must get around to doing that too.
I love the picture of you and your great-grandfather. Enjoy your break!
Thank you, Liz!
The photo of you with your great-grandfather is wonderful. I look forward to your return.