Philomena is my great-grandmother on my mother's side. I had been searching for her, close to 10 years and at times, it drove me bat-crazy.
How I found her is that I never gave up. You can't. I had to take a break from it but it wasn't that long of one because I was determined to find her and a bit obsessed. She once existed and I was going to find her!
One day, I was going through the names of the 1860 census for an uncle of my great-grandfather and noticed they had a Philip Nann living with them. I had remembered that I found the birth record saying that a Minnie Naun was the mother of my grandfather. Knowing how many misspellings are found in the US census, I ran a check on Philip Nann and sure enough, he had a sister named Philomena and then I found other documents, showing her and my grandfather as a married couple. How cool is that?
Many European immigrants knew each other from the old country and it pays to check out the other people on the census and the neighbors listed.
I have a huge family to research and have already matched shared DNA to 3 Nann's on Ancestry to confirm I am on the right track. It feels so good, to finally break down that one, stubborn brick wall.
See BRICK WALL - Philomena Hasenstab
WTH?
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That is cool and congrats on finally finding her. Minnie is often the short form for Philomena and , to me, she was so close! She wasn't like 3 or 4 greats away but just one and yet so far away...until now.
ReplyDeleteYes I am thrilled
DeleteOh my, what a GREAT find - congratulations!
ReplyDeleteThanks. Took long enough...
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