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.

Old Stuff

There was decent geezer tennis this morning inside at Wooddale. I talked to Rich Stebbins today and my first outside tennis in Minnesota for 2008 is scheduled for tomorrow with him. I played six sets of outdoor tennis in January in Florida on clay courts, so it's not the first time in the elements for the year, but it has been eagerly anticipated. Tomorrow is predicted to warm into the 60's.

The longest lived woman in my ancestry was Jacobine Petrine Sørensdtr Hansen, my great-grandmother. She was born January 22, 1864, to Søren Jørgensen and Anne Petrine Jacobsdtr at Faksfjord farm, near Magisaas in Norway. She died February 1, 1952 at Yellow Lake, Wisconsin at age 88. I am gladdened to report that there have been a few long livers in my family. :-)



She was born before automobiles and lived into the atomic age. Abe Lincoln was President when she was born and she died in the last year of Harry Truman's administration.

There are just four days until the scheduled re-arrival of Kagami Sensei on these shores. She carries some of Jacobine's DNA; both were long distance travelers. Jakobine liked her fish cooked, while KS has been known to take hers raw.

Still January

A January thaw is promised for tomorrow. It's been cold for quite a while, so a little warm up is welcome.

A photo of Herb posing as the Michelin man on a cold January day.


Time for a short update on the curling team. We had to give up a point as handicap for the first time this year. The handicap system is meant to even the score so that the game is more likely to end in a tie. Since we've been on the streak, the league fathers have seen fit to rate us as a slightly stronger team. It made for an interesting game, as planned. We started fast, but our opponents came back to within a point in the final end. We had last rock, but didn't need it, winning 7-5. The streak is extended to four.

Last night was tennis with the hardcore girls. It was a close match and ended at a set each after 90 minutes 4-6, 7-5.

A little George Miller genealogy tidbit. He landed in New York in May, 1828, with his family. Where did he go from there until he surfaces in Steuben County Indiana and later, Bad Ax County, Wisconsin? Many, maybe a majority of Alsatian immigrants, settled in Western New York, especially in Erie County. Many others stayed in the Buffalo area for a short while before moving farther west, to places like Ontario and Ohio. Why was western New York such a popular destination? That is easy to explain. The Erie Canal had opened in 1825. It made western New York easily accessible from the Atlantic coast for the first time. For an immigrant arriving at New York harbor, looking for cheap unoccupied land to settle, Western New York was the easiest place to reach. There must be records of this immigrant family somewhere in upstate New York. A puzzle exists here that should be pursued.