The Third Emperor

 

To understand the life of our ancestors, sometimes we cannot do so without understanding the history of the times in which they lived. Reading the obituary of Theresa Blaising Stevens' mother, it is plain to see a compelling story motivated her choice to move with her children to a new world. What actually happened—and when—in that bigger historical picture will help us form a timeline that either juxtaposes with our ancestor's lifespan, or doesn't.

Take that mention of "the third emperor" in the tale of what became of Mary Blaising's husband back in France. Who might that "third emperor" actually be? Since we already read that Mary brought her children to New Haven, Indiana, about 1866, one could presume that the emperor the obituary referred to was Napoleon. But a little fact checking reveals that the Napoleon in power at that time in France, while called Napoleon III, was technically France's second emperor, reigning as such from 1852 to 1870.

A key turning point in Napoleon III's reign did turn out to be that same year the Blaising family was said to have emigrated: 1866. At that point, tensions between neighboring Prussia and Austria caused the French emperor, through his foreign minister, to expect a long war ahead, precipitating Napoleon III's proposal the next year for a form of universal military service. 

Perhaps that period of uncertainty, at least for those already involved in the French military as Mary Blaising's husband supposedly was, could have been the impetus to send loved ones far from harm's way. It would make sense for someone in the military to use inside knowledge as a springboard for such decisions. But looking ahead in the timeline of France's history, we can see the emperor's military proposal failing—in fact, his overall political success waning. Napoleon III's reign came to an end not much afterwards; he was deposed in 1870.

Checking this timeline of France's history seems to correspond handily with the story the Blaising family offered for their mother's obituary in 1907. But if the Laurent Blaising whose 1882 death record we found in Paris was Mary's long-lost husband, why didn't he join his family after the war came to a close? Or did Mary only presume her husband, so far away after her arrival in Indiana, had died in battle?

Finding military records, or death records for any other French men by that same name will help sort out some of these questions. Whether I can access them online is a question still needing an answer. The story in the obituary seems plausible enough—but the fact that details in Laurent Blaising's death record don't align with the other end of the story is troubling.

  

Those French Records: They're all Greek to Me

 

I'd love to say it's all Greek to me, but unfortunately I can't; it's French, and the last time I studied that language...well, let's just say it's beyond my memory currently. But to gain any helpful details on a family member's roots, I'll try anything.

In this case, the possible family connection is to Theresa Blaising Stevens, technically my father-in-law's step-grandmother, but in reality, the only grandmother he ever knew. Theresa came to the United States as a young child—possibly a toddler or even an infant—sometime before she and her family showed up in Indiana for the 1870 census.

Her family, by the time of that 1870 census, was missing one person: Theresa's father, whoever he was. We've seen Theresa's mother Mary's obituary, which mentioned his name as Lawrence Blaising, but we've found two of her brothers' death certificates state their father's name as Henry. This past weekend, it was time for me to see what could be found on the man who supposedly died during wartime, back in France in the 1860s, no matter which given name he claimed.

Ancestry.com made the search rather easy, if the death record featured through their hints system is the right one. Logically—at least for someone whose death was in France—Theresa's father was listed as Laurent, rather than the Americanized Lawrence. That was a discrepancy easily accepted. But for the next detail translated from that block of French handwriting, I had my doubts. Either my French was far more rusty than I thought it was, or we have a problem with this death record.

I tried my hand at transcribing the words into Google Translate, just in case. Of course, what appears to me to be illegible text might, to a native speaker, be easily deciphered. Here is my best rendition of the basic details:

In the year 1882, January 4th at [?] hours in the morning, the death certificate of Laurent Blaising, aged 61, bus driver, born at Romelfing (Meurthe). Died yesterday at 1:00, [at his home at? or] Lived at 47 Chapelle Street. Son of Jean Blaising and Anne Marie Meiller, spouses [or couple?] deceased; married to Marie Hirschbeck aged 52, day laborer....

Whether I've managed to mangle the body of the text or not, there is one thing clear about this portion of the record's information: Mary Blaising did not leave France after this man died; she left long before his 1882 death.

Now, this Laurent Blaising may not be the right husband, notwithstanding the name of that man's wife matching up with what our Mary's name might have been in France ("Marie"). And of course there might be more than one Laurent Blaising with a wife named Marie in the whole of France—or even in their native region of Lorraine.

One thing, however, is certain: this puzzle will require further inspection.

Owning It

 

At many local genealogical organizations, summertime is break time. Members are traveling, or spending time with family, or celebrating holidays, wedding anniversaries, or birthdays. Summer is not the best time to expect a record-breaking turnout for society meetings.

There's only one problem with such a schedule: though based in reality, it puts the group's officers in a bind if the following season is time to nominate and elect candidates for the upcoming year's board of directors. Our local organization moved that schedule up a month to satisfy all the requirements of our bylaws—and to leave enough time for the nominating committee to adequately network among members and (who am I kidding here?) coax, cajole, and downright bribe potential candidates to step up and volunteer their services for the good of the society.

It was in beginning that nominations process last week that a thought struck me. Having served on our local board for (mumble mumble) years, I've noticed two types of volunteers who have done their part on the board. One group is comprised of those who have done just that: done "their part" in a perfunctory, to-the-letter manner. They have filled the slot on the roster, gotten the job done at least adequately, and then moved on.

Then there is the other group. The only way I can describe this group is to say when they stepped up to be installed in their position, they owned that position.

In talking with others about our genealogy organizations—no matter whether national, state, or local—I have sometimes heard people mention a particular board member as a "Type A" individual. I won't belabor the description of such a term; I think we all have a mental image of such a person. But I think that way of looking at such board members does all of us a disservice. 

I've worked in private business, for governmental agencies, and as an owner or partner in my own businesses over the years. From experience across multiple work environments, I think I can say there is a vast difference between those who see themselves as simply employees, just doing their job, and people who own their work. While it may be the employee's boss for whom that ubiquitous saying has been adopted—"the buck stops here"—for the self-employed, there is no one to whom that "buck" can be passed. They own the results and the results' consequences.

Now that I look back at all those conversations with friends about board members, I wonder if I got it all wrong. It may actually be that those "Type A" volunteers were the ones who owned their work. They owned their contributions to the organization in that they put their whole heart into the effort, and took responsibility for seeing the outcome through to the end.

If that's what "Type A" really means, perhaps it is a good thing that there are people out there willing to "own" their efforts, and "own" their outcome. We need more board members like that.

Playing Catch-Up

 

Can one ever play catch-up with genealogy?

This month, since I'm working on the family tree of a step-mother in my father-in-law's ancestry, there obviously won't be any DNA component to check; Theresa Blaising and the Stevens family are relatives by marriage only. There were no half-siblings descended from Theresa to blend in with her husband's previous children.

That was my inspiration for launching a different weekend project for the month of August: catch up on all the DNA matches backlogged from that side of the family. This may or may not work. Consider that the flow of new DNA matches has slowed to a trickle ever since the Golden State Killer mystery was solved—thanks to genetic genealogy—and that puts a different frame around the picture of my husband's newest DNA matches. 

Since the beginning of June, my husband has gained only fifteen new DNA matches—and that's only at Ancestry.com. I imagine the other testing sites have experienced the same slowdown. In the last month alone, my husband received only two new matches. Not much to work with in numbers that low.

Not to worry, though, for in total, my husband currently has 1,340 matches at just Ancestry alone. I'd say that's a lot of catch-up work to be done there, despite all the handy tools such as Ancestry's ThruLines program.

If I ever can catch up with that moving target—hopefully, there will be more matches added as the months roll on—there are other tasks to complete. Popping over to the various tree-building sites I've added over the years, I can work on updating the information on each month's Twelve Most Wanted as I dig further into their documentation. Working step-by-step and simultaneously in different programs may be just the way to catch up on workloads there.

Still, for all those promises, I sometimes wonder if there is even such a state as being "caught up." With each step backwards in time, we double the number of ancestors we are researching. At some point, that task will achieve a critical mass of impossibility—a reality we all need to face. I'm seeing that this year as I bang my head against that genealogical brick wall in a couple of my father-in-law's lines.

As the forward momentum staggers, perhaps the best resolution is to look sideways at the collateral lines for clues and DNA match connections, then finally to look backwards at all the organizational clean-up that still needs attention. In my in-laws' tree of well over thirty thousand, there certainly is a lot of cleaning to catch up on.

At the Corner of Sunrise and Sunset

 

Back roads can provide us with some unique scenery—and confounding concepts. The other day, an errand to a city two hour's drive north of my home put me on track to retrace my steps just as rush hour was beginning. Traveling with my daughter, who doesn't mind exploring options, we decided to avoid the traffic by returning home via some back roads. Curious to look around as we drove from one town to another on our impromptu route, while stopped at one traffic light, I spotted the street signs marking the intersection: the red light had us paused at the corner of Sunrise and Sunset.

Give that one a thought. Could that even be possible? Yet, here we were, accomplishing the impossible.

Later that evening, I reconsidered that little discovery: a spot in the universe where it was, indeed, possible to be at the nexus of absolute opposites. Here I was, opening my laptop that night, preparing to chase after Theresa Blaising Stevens' roots. And what did I find? Two brothers claiming their father was named Henry, while the rest of the brothers—if they acknowledged anyone at all—told their families their father's name was Lawrence.

Wait. Either he was, or he wasn't...unless we are at the corner of Sunrise and Sunset.

Such a tidy tale was presented in Theresa's mother's obituary. Perhaps in 1907, that was the way the world was: organized and orderly. The family lore said Mary Blaising's husband was Lawrence, so that was who he was. And that he died in Paris, in service to his native France, prompting his widowed wife's exodus in 1866—along with ten children—to America.

Perhaps that is more a romantic notion than a report of reality. One disrupting detail: there was a "Laurent" Blaising who died in Paris—but his death came sixteen years after the supposed precipitating event that propelled a desperate widow and her ten orphaned children to seek asylum in the United States.

But remember: we are at the corner of Sunrise and Sunset, where little oxymoronic details—dead? or alive? Schrödinger?—matter little. It is that romantic notion that plays well in those 1907 obituaries and in stories families repeat to themselves.

In the here and now of 1907, perhaps the stories the children repeated to themselves provided comfort. But for us in their future, at that corner of Sunrise and Sunset, we can look back through time—and several assembled digitized documents—and sort through the details. We can reconstruct historic timelines as well as personal and family timelines and see whether the plot lines can even intersect.

While my French may be a bit rusty, we'll take a look next week at what can be found about Mary Blaising's husband, whoever he might have been.

What the Records Say —If we Can Find Them

 

One way to confirm a relative's parents' names might be to view the subsequent death records of that relative's siblings. In our search to confirm the parents of Theresa Blaising Stevens, my father-in-law's grandmother, that is what we will attempt to do today—if we can find such records.

According to Theresa's mother's 1907 obituary, six brothers remained to her after their mother's passing. Fortunately, each of those named brothers was also identified by his current place of residence. Of course, I would have further appreciated any mention of each sibling's spouse's name as well, but I'll take what I can get.

For the first child mentioned in Mary Ann Blaising's obituary, Henry, his own death certificate didn't offer much help. Though Henry lived in the same town as his mother at the point of her death, by the time of his own passing in 1931, he was living in Texas. Those left to mourn the eighty two year old immigrant, however, were hard pressed to provide information for Henry's death certificate. For his father's name, a scrawling handwriting entered what looked like an abbreviation: "Hy." Henry? And for mother's maiden name, not even a guess, though she apparently outlived her husband by years. However, the informant, Henry's daughter Rose, did know that he had been born in Lorraine, France.

Well, what about the second of Theresa's siblings? August apparently remained in New Haven long after his mother's passing there. But when we look for his own records, we spot one detail which may cause us some research problems: he was listed as J. August Blaising. Could he have been born a Jean August? No matter, we can see from that certificate, thankfully entered in a very clear handwriting, that his father's name was given as Henry Blaising. August's mother, according to his death certificate, was listed as Mary Hershbeck.

The only problem with seeing the two brothers' father listed as Henry Blaising was that Mary's own obituary gave her husband's name as Lawrence. Since the third child mentioned in Mary's obituary was also named Lawrence, I looked to his residence in Albany, New York, for any clarification, but so far have found nothing—making that task a work still in progress.

On I went through each of the sons listed in Mary's obituary. With some, I encountered problems. For son Louis, his typewritten certificate simply provided a given name for his father, something that looked like Lauren, but for the mother, "unknown." But a record of Louis' application for a marriage license made up for that lack, providing the name of his father as Lawrence Blaising. And for his mother, an interesting twist: her name was given as Mary Hershbach.

Once again I spotted variations on the sons' own names. Like his brother August, Philip was buried with a telltale leading initial "J"—Jean Phillipe?

All that leads me to wonder: if that family were indeed from France, could it be possible that not only the given names like "Louis"—spelled "Lewis" in his marriage record—were Americanized, but could the same have happened to the very surname they were all known by? What if we approached a more phonetic rendition of the possible original surname? Could it actually have been something more like Blesin? Or if truly German, as some census records had indicated, could the name have originally looked like Blaessing or Bläsing?

At some point, we'll need to take a deep breath and attempt that flying leap across the void to the continent where the family originated. We'll let the romanticized version of the family's story from Mary's obituary help guide us, but we need to be open to other possibilities as we consider the documentation.

Theresa's Six Surviving Siblings

 

One way to confirm those doubtful listings of parents' names in a death certificate might be to compare what was given in a sibling's own record. Thankfully in our case, while seeking confirmation of Theresa Blaising Stevens' parents' names, we have at least six opportunities to do so: her six siblings still remaining after their mother's 1907 passing.

According to the Fort Wayne, Indiana, obituary for Mary Blaising, she originally came to the United States from France with ten of her children. By the time of her passing, seven of those descendants remained, including Theresa herself. They were Theresa's brothers Henry, August, Lawrence, John, Philip, and Louis. Granted, those were their Americanized names, but that list provides us a starting point for launching our search for other confirmations of the Blaising children's parents' names.

Unfortunately, while this sounds like a straightforward proposition, in reality these research quests are not so easily accomplished. For one thing, if you know anything about French given names, you may realize that there may be more coming into play here than a mere Americanization of their names. The possibility of two given names for one son—such as Jean Phillipe instead of simply Philip, for instance—might make one son appear as if there were actually two, depending on how inconsistently those two names were used.

Looking back to the 1870 census, where we first found Theresa and her family in New Haven, Indiana, we can see there were seven children listed. Whether the names were not totally identical to those in Mary's obituary may be a case of editorial error on the part of the newspaper where Mary's obituary had been published—or perhaps a case of census enumerator error in the 1870 census. Whatever the case might be, that 1870 census provides a sister for Theresa rather than all brothers. And there was no sign of a son named Lawrence, despite that child most likely being a namesake for his father, who was by then presumed dead back in France, or at least not likely to have fathered another son after 1870.

No matter; now that we have at least a partially confirmed list of Theresa's siblings, our next task will be to trace the location of each sibling to find records of each sibling's family across the decades, and particularly to locate their own death certificates. Let's see whether the names of Mary Blaising's parents still turn out to be Henry "Herochbeck" and Mary Ann Becker.