Homestead Genealogy

It has been nearly a decade since I first featured this photograph on Homestead Genealogy, and at that time, I had never seen the original. The old photocopy in my possession was washed out and grainy, the young couple’s faces barely discernible, and the border with the photographer’s mark was not included. When a nearly pristine original made its way to me last year, I was elated: finally, every detail of the 1896 wedding portrait of my great-grandparents Mathias and Elisabeth (Hoffmann) Noehl of North Washington, Chickasaw County, Iowa, could be fully appreciated, and, in addition, the photographer’s mark offered a new clue about the couple’s lives as newlyweds:

Wedding Wednesday: Puffed Sleeves, Revisited It has been nearly a decade since I first featured this photograph on Homestead Genealogy, and at that time, I had never seen the original. The old photocopy in my possession was washed out and gra…

Anna Barbara (Ruckdäschel) Poesch was forty-two years old before she saw something of the world. Born on 14 November 1811 in the village of Schönlind near what is now Weißenstadt, Bavaria, Germany, she was said to have been the daughter of Johann Georg Ruckdäschel and Eva Margaretha Brodmerkel. Nothing is known of her early years, but Barbara, as she was known, married shoemaker Wolfgang Poesch on 22 April 1833 when she was twenty-one years old. Five known children would be born to the couple in the years to come, the first that same year: Johann (1833), Catharina (1835), Anna Margaretha (1838), Lorenz (1847), and Paulus (1850):

Tombstone Tuesday: Anna Barbara (Ruckdäschel) Poesch (1811-1887) Anna Barbara (Ruckdäschel) Poesch was forty-two years old before she saw something of the world. Born on 14 November 1811 in the village of Schönlind near what is now Weißenstadt, Bavaria, Germany,…

It was a chilly January night in 1905 when a group of six young people set out on a sleighing party, traversing the thirteen miles from Center to Bloomfield in northeastern Nebraska:

A Jolly Sleighing Party It was a chilly January night in 1905 when a group of six young people set out on a sleighing party, traversing the thirteen miles from Center to Bloomfield in northeastern Nebraska. The Bloomfield…