Guess Who's Back from White Earth

It was such a nice day, that even I was coerced into riding my bike. The mileage got me into single digits for the month and double digits for the year. PP wanted to bike over to the garden plot at Hamline and see if her perennial plants were coming up yet. She showed some enthusiasm for the ride - her first bike ride of the year - by pretending to fly. The ride was only 6.25 miles, but enough for a start. After all, I had tennis to play tonight with Jerry and the hardcore girls.


A word or two about my trip yesterday to the History Center in search of more info about George Miller, the last of my ancestors to live in the Alsace region of France, and that in 1828. This was done with an eye to perhaps doing some more research when I visit France later this year.

It was a trip to the History Center to find a reference book - "The Alsace Emigration Book." I found volume 1, but not volume 2. There were just a few Millers in the book and no George or Jean, or Jaçon (Jaçon?), Marie Elisabeth (not Elis.), or Marie Roni (perhaps Rom). Maybe volume 2 has something, if I can track it down.

The Ancestry.com site, which is available there, did add some tantalizing details. I did a search for George Miller (aka Grossfather), born in 1823 in France. An entry from the 1880 Federal Census from Missouri (done in April, 1880)shows a George Miller, born in 1823 in Alsace. It could be Grossfather, but he is married to Caroline Miller, 47, and has a 17 year-old son, George Miller, and an adopted daughter, Corinne, 3. He was a grocer in St Louis township, St Louis County, Mo. The 17 year-old son would have been born in about 1863, around the time that Grossfather disappeared for 28 years. When he returned Sept 10, 1888, the Crawford County Journal article indicates that he was gone for 28 years and was visiting from Missouri. He must have left Prairie du Chien in 1860.

There is also a George Miller, born in France in about 1823, a servant in a hotel in November, 1880, working for a Barbara Heckler. He was in Clinton, Henry County, Missouri. Could they both be him? There is quite a distance between Clinton and St Louis.

And then tonight there was tennis at Wooddale. We played two very good and very close sets, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5). The biking took some of the starch out of my game, but all in all it was a good match and I was glad to be off the court. I think I will sleep well tonight, except that later I did have the curried Singapore Rice Noodles from Yang's and that be a constraining factor to a good night's slumber.