Having just finished the Shaw family history book, British Roots, Colonial Branches, the book documenting my paternal grandmother's mostly English family, I am starting in earnest on my fifth family history book. This book will document the Schulien family who originally came from the town of Losheim in the Saarland area of Germany. Several branches came to this country in the 1800s, one of which was that of my maternal great, great grandfather Mathias Schulien.
Mathias and his wife Maria Petry had four children in Germany before they emigrated and settled in Ohio. After arriving in America, they had one more child, Joseph, who was my great grandfather. Joseph married Mary Gertrude Frecker, also from a German family, and they had 8 children, including my maternal grandmother, Mary Bernadine Schulien or "Bernie," as everyone called her, including some of her grandchildren.
Bernie and her husband Alfred Mueller had 5 children before Alfred was killed in a train accident. The youngest child was my mother, Frances.
While I had a close relationship with my grandmother, aunts and uncles in the Schulien-Mueller clan, I did not know too many extended family members. I remember hearing my mother speak fondly of all of them, so I do remember names. And I did visit a few, so I have some memories of those visits. But other than that, I have had to start from a place of ignorance regarding the larger extended family. Fortunately my cousins Jim Lisk and Tim Schulien, who lived in Ohio in their youth, have helped me get started and fill out much of the more recent generations.
And so, for the past few weeks, I have buried myself in the Schulien family tree and I have to say, the task is monumental. These Schuliens certainly did not have fertility problems. Most of the families, in both Germany and the United States, had at least five or six children, and many had ten or twelve. Needless to say, in trying to trace each branch of the family to the present day, the sheer number of individuals is overwhelming. And it is easy to get lost. Then, just when I think I have a handle on things, I find that there are several intermarriages, making me loop back to another family which is already in the family tree, whereupon I get completely lost in the weeds.
This afternoon, I've spent hours on just a handful of people. I was working on some descandents of one of the Schuliens, whose family name is Kehres. I found three men with the same first name and surname Kehres, all born within a year or two of each other and it took me two hours to figure out which one belonged in my tree. I tell myself I shouldn't care about these second cousins, once removed, or 1st cousins, 3 times removed, but I have this need for completion, and unless I can come close to completing this tree, I won't be satisfied.
It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't do genealogy, but it's sort of like trying to finish a jigsaw puzzle or a crossword that you've started. It isn't good enough to have the puzzle finished except for a few pieces the dog chewed up, or that might have gotten lost. It isn't okay to be minus two or three words in that crossword. You won't rest until you finish.
Of course, doing a family tree that dates all the way back to 1790 is a bit different. No, it's a lot different. To find all the records and verification on just one person can take hours or days. Other people are much easier to find. But I have learned that every family history book I do takes about a year of full time work - work that is a labor of love, I might add, as I get no income from this. This tree, however, might take a bit longer. The fact is, I don't want to work full time on it as I have other things I enjoy doing, so it might take more like two years.
Sometimes, because of the way it drives me to continue searching, I wish I had never started. Other times I tell myself that this is something I'm really good at - finding hard to find people - and I know the finished product - a family history book that will endure long past the time when I'm on this planet, will be something I will be proud to complete.
So I continue ..... and will post updates as the project continues. Next post will be about the steps I take to find hard to find people.
