About an e-mail

So what I've enjoyed the most about this little project of mine has been the new connections I've made with my cousins. And it's not just on the Ganzer side of the family. I've been chatting it up with the Beck relatives too. I see an offshoot of this site for the Becks in the future. (Nutshell...my mom's parents' families came from Finland/Russia and Sweden around the turn of the nineteenth century...you'd never tell by looking at us that we had Scandinavian heritage, right?)  

Back to the new connections with the cousins. In particular Walt, my dad's 1st cousin. I met Walt when I was barely 5 years old on a road trip to California, and if I remember correctly he came through Wisconsin at some point in the 70s. Or was I hallucinating? Anyway. Back in 1969-ish my grandfather got a wild hair (hare?) to drive from Minneapolis to southern California to visit his brother. I may have this all wrong, but this is how I remember it. I was 5 for crying out loud. 

Before we left on the trip we shopped for stuff to keep us busy in the car...like crayons, books, etc. This was a big deal because we couldn't open or play with any of the stuff we bought until we started the trip. So exciting! 

There was a station wagon involved. So I'm not really sure how we made this happen. The travelers: Jack, Louise, Candy, Bob, Mary, Karen, me. In my opinion (as a rather open minded 50-something year old) this was a recipe for disaster, but as a 5 year old this was an amazing adventure! We had a mattress in the back. Seriously. A freaking mattress! I'm still trying to put all the pieces together of how it was decided that this was a good idea. Probably started with a "beer and a little one"...classic Jack. 

I don't remember how long we visited with Uncle Bob and his family, Emma, Susanne, Steve, Walt and Jeff (and their great danes...and maybe a small dog too?) in California, but I thought they were so cool because they had a pool in their back yard. Sweet! I have no recollection of being in the pool, but I do have memories of a beach, Disney Land and Busch Gardens. Disney Land is my biggest memory. I got to ride in the tea cups and the Small World, but Candy and Walt got ride the Matterhorn. Cooler than cool in the eyes of a 5 year old. 

So there's my first California vacation in three paragraphs. But this isn't about a road trip, it's about an email I got from Walt the other day. The part about not being able to shut his dad up cracked me up. I wonder if the reel-to-reel audio tapes that Bob and Jack sent back and forth still exist...but I digress. 

Here's the email from Walt:  

These are some photos you probably already have.  The last photo is of uncle Harold(Bob and Jack’s uncle.  I believe Harold was his middle name.  He served in WWI in the rainbow division(Douglas MacArthur’s division).  My dad once said he was a chauffeur for a general.  Wouldn’t it be something if he was MacArthur’s driver.  I’m sure if he was I would have heard about it.  As you know Grandma Ganzer’s father died at a young age.  My dad told me once that he was a Pullman railroad car painter and his death was caused by lead poisoning.  I noticed some Whitney’s in the genealogy.  When we were kids my dad always claimed we were a distant relation of Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin.  Anyways thanks for the info.  If my dad was alive you wouldn’t be able to shut him up about how he had a ancestor who came over on the Mayflower.  WG 

PS I believe my parents wedding reception was held at your great grandmother’s house.  Anna Ray?  If so that is where that one wedding picture was taken.

Jack, Bob holding Karen

I'm thoroughly enjoying this, can you tell? 

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About Lindsay Bros.

Here's an advertising piece about John H Ganzer and Lindsay Brothers. It looks like he started at Lindsay Bros as a clerk when he was 16. The earliest city directory I found with his name is from 1909.  

The building is still standing and is now a residential property. How it looks today according to Google maps.

1909 Minneapolis City Directory

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About the Mayflower book

After discovering and verifying my family’s Mayflower link I thought long and hard about how to best present this information. I did a little research on Isaac Allerton and it only took a few minutes to discover that his daughter, Mary Allerton Cushman, was the last of the original pilgrims when she passed away in 1699. That info quickly led me to a book about her, "The Last Pilgrim", on Amazon, which was the basis of my plan for my dad’s Christmas gift. But I had to figure out how to explain (with us being in different states and time zones on Christmas morning) why I was giving him a book about a long dead pilgrim lady. So I decided to compile the lineage into a book of my creation. 

He figured it out.  Mission accomplished.  

PDF file of Mayflower book

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About the relatives

What's all this? Well, I started out by posting family photographs in a private group on Facebook. But there's a small problem...I really don't like Facebook. More often than not, as I navigated to the group page I invariably browsed past posts that, well, pissed me off. (And we'll just leave it at that.) I will continue to post family information to FB via this blog...if I can figure out how to publish and post at the same time. 

I've always been interested in my family's history. One branch of the family tree can trace it's roots all the way back to the Battle of Hastings (1066, I shit you not, Google it), another branch to the Plymouth settlers who arrived on the Mayflower, one other only goes back a few generations primarily due to Finnish/Swedish language barriers. The people and histories are diverse. 

The genealogy sites available today are quite impressive. The data available for free is extensive, and if you want to invest a little money on a pay site you'll have access to millions and millions of records from all over the world. I use a combination of both. But don't forget the resources available at public libraries. I would typically use Nashville Public Library's free Ancestry.com all-access account, but due to Covid, using their public computers isn't a safe option right now. I'll add more features to this page like a gallery page for sharing photos, links to trees, etc. Consider this a continual work in progress. 

This renewed interest started in early November 2020 when I got an email from Family Search (the genealogy site run by the Mormon Church). I plugged myself into their family tree database years ago and get emails from them every so often. Fortunately they aren't like Lands End who will send you 7 emails in a day just because you clicked on a link to look at a cashmere sweater 4 months ago. Seriously. Anyway...so I got an email from Family Search saying they detected that one of my ancestors had a possible Mayflower connection. Ok, that got my attention!

Some background...My great grandmother, Violet May Young Benner Ganzer, was interested genealogy and had a book called "The Boynton Family. A Genealogy of the Descendants of William and John Boynton..." that was published in 1897 (recently reprinted and available on Amazon) that my grandfather gave to me. My family are descendants of John. The book contains a page of her scrawled notations that outlined the lineage she needed for her membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR National Number 283340). I've been told that she was quite proud of her ancestry. It seems that I share Violet's interest in family history. I wonder what she would have uncovered if she had access to the tools available today. 

So back to this email from Family Search. I logged in and sure enough. It only took a couple of clicks to link my name to Edward Bayles Benner, Violet's father, and then everything quickly fell into place. I find it satisfying that Violet is in the Mayflower lineage. I think she would be pleased. 

To corroborate the free data on Family Search I purchased a subscription to Ancestry.com. I spent many hours and evenings wading through the Ancestry "hints" to make sure that I could verify the sources of the free data. It was tedious but important because I wanted to share the news with my family but only if the data was sound. To the best of my knowledge, I believe it is. If links don't work, let me know in the comments. 

And...without further ado, I present The Relatives...

(Click link above thumbnail for printable PDF file)

Jack Ganzer to Mary Ann Whitney

Mary Ann Whitney to Rebekah Cushman

Rebekah Cushman to Pilgrims

Passenger Lists

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