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Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Genealogy Juggling Act - My German Family Trees

Being about a quarter or so German means that I really need to visit Germany someday.  It also means so much more to me than that.  On my mom's German side of the family, everyone was always very close to one another.  I often wonder where that desire to remain close came from. 

When so many of my other family lines have gone their own way for various reasons, my Vienop's (Borchers) have remained close to one another.  I can only imagine that it is because of the family's desire to remain close.  Also, there are many females in this line.  Generally, females remain close to their mothers even as adults.  I give a huge amount of credit to one person in my line - Mary (Vienop) Borchers.  I have written about her in a few past posts.  I have so much more information about her and was close to her myself.

It is interesting to me that I have so much information available to me about my Vienop and Borchers Family Trees but have only begun to start actually "treeing" it.  I have photos, stories, a diary, and maybe even other information I have not gone through as of yet.   I want to have this information organized and well presented.  Also, I have to be careful not to reveal information about living people.  In my Borchers/Vienop Line, people live long lives.  Mary Borchers lived to be 96 years old.

I have research interests for my German side of the family but must admit that most of my research for the Borchers' and Vienop's is more inwardly directed toward my family members, photos, and records that we already have.  Networking outside the family might produce some helpful hints but as evidenced by my Borchers research, my aunt and uncle seem to be the primary experts in Northern California. 

At any rate, below are my research interests for my German Heritage:

1.  Vienop and Vinup - Napa, California; Audrain, Missouri; and Borninghausen, Germany - I haven't really started working on my family tree for this line but have personal firsthand knowledge of who everyone is back to my great great grandparents, Henry Vienop, Sr. and Anna Marie Koch.  I will get working on this line in the near future.

2.  Borchers - Napa, California; Aurora, Minnesota and North Dakota; and Germany - Jurgen Borchers you say?  I have some information about him from 1720.  I also have several other lines that I have yet to explore.  I worked a little bit on my Jackel ancestors.  I am crafting a Borchers Family Tree on Ancestry.com as I write this which I hope to be free of errors.  It is currently a private tree as I add people and their information.  Let's just say a whole lot of exact research has been done on my Borchers line.  Several people with Borchers family trees on Ancestry.com have errors in them including my original tree.  I hope to have a good accurate version to publicize on Ancestry.com by the end of this year or sooner.

3.  Romaine's - Delancy Street, Manhattan, New York -  Where do I begin with this research?  I do feel like I have pinpointed my Romaine's location in New York City.  Mary Elizabeth Romaine was born in NYC in 1878.  Her parents were Joseph and Frances Romaine.  Frances' maiden name is a bit of a mystery at this point.  I have seen it butchered four different ways on legal documents.  Let's just say it was a German name that starts with an "L".  I have no idea if my Romaine's are related to several of the same surname living in New Jersey at the time.  More than likely, they are related to Romaine's living it Brooklyn, possibly.  It is interesting to note that my great grandmother, Mary Romaine did have a family bungalow on the Jersey Shore in Keansburg.  Where did she get that from?  Considering that her husband, Frank Joseph McGuire, took off on the family, I am thinking Mary had some tough things to handle in her life including four living young children at the time.


The Vienop's and Borchers' are on my grandma's (Dorothy Marie Borchers Flanagan) side of the family.  The Romaine's are my father's side of the family.  Mary Elizabeth Romaine was my great grandmother who was married to Francis Joseph McGuire.

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