Jill's Genealogy Journey

Stories, Discoveries & Tips

Jill Holman

Generations

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I really liked this book published in 2023. How interesting to better understand generational differences and how culture has changed in the last 100 years. I bet you will find something that surprises you! For example, Millennials are not broke. The data show they have actually done quite well financially.

The author focuses on the six generations living now and how technology has impacted each generation, as well as these two trends that have been developing over the years:

  • Individualism
  • Slower life

Be warned, this book is very long and detailed. The author used 24 data sets that included 39 million people. There are 282 charts in the book and it is 560 pages. Remember, you don’t have to read the whole thing to get something out of it!

I encourage you to check out the book. It is a great resource to help us understand each other better.

Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America’s Future by Jean M. Twenge

“Fascinating… an informative and insightful study of the dynamics at play in U.S. society today.” —Publishers Weekly

2023 Holiday Collection

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I made a couple more ancestor ornaments this year – what a nice way to honor our ancestors! See them up close here.

If you want more context on these families:

I also thought it would be fun to customize a notebook and sticky notes.

Picture of ancestor ornaments, sticky notes, notebook

P.S. You can even use these to get started and customize them yourself!

The First Peacetime Draft in the US

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I noticed all six of the Laitala brothers had draft cards dated October 16, 1940, so I had to look that up – it was the first peacetime draft in the US! All males between the ages of 21 to 35 were required to register. They called it R-Day and there were lines out the doors all over the country. Check out the pictures:

You can hear or read FDR’s radio address from that day: https://www.docsteach.org/component/ml_documents/document/fdr-selective-service-day

I made a table for the Laitala brothers and we get an interesting snapshot of them on this day. Only two were still in Chisholm. For the name of the person who will always know your address, all listed their father except Wayne listed their mother. They were tall, which I did not realize since my grandfather was the shortest one of the bunch. I met some of them when I was little, but of course everyone seemed tall to me then.

Information from the Laitala Brothers Draft Cards:

NameAgeLives inWorks atListsHeightWeightDraft DateNotes
William33ItascaMesaba Cliffs MiningHis father5’9″180Oct 16, 1940Crippled right hand
Edward30ChisholmNoneHis father5’11”190Oct 16, 1940
Sulo29MinneapolisDiamond Iron WorksHis father5’8”165Oct 16, 1940
Wayne26WaconiaSchool DistrictHis mother6’170Oct 16, 1940
Arvid24ChisholmFamily farmHis father6’155Oct 16, 1940
Veikko21MinneapolisElectric MachineryHis father5”10”160Oct 16, 1940

Then I had to check the Holman brothers. They were a bit younger, so only two of them had to register on October 16, 1940. The rest registered in the following years. Look at all the scars and such in the notes!

Information from the Holman Brothers Draft Cards:

NameAgeLives inWorks atListsHeightWeightDraft DateNotes
Luvern26OrtonvilleNone5’10”160Oct 16, 1940
Glen25OrtonvilleNoneHis wife5’7”158Oct 16, 1940Index finger on left hand cut off
Earl18OrtonvilleNP Ry CoHis mother6’2”193Jun 31, 1942Scar on right hand and right leg
James18MinneapolisPlymouth Bowling AlleyHis mother5’9”132Jan 2, 1946All fingers on both hands missing
Robert21MinneapolisNoneHis mother5’12”180Apr 1, 1946Scar on right and left cheek

Glen Holman’s WWII draft card
The Registrar’s Report for Glen Holman

Later that year, a Gallup poll reported that 92% of respondents said that the draft was being handled fairly.

If you want more information on our ancestors’ military service: https://jillholman.com/genealogy/military-service/

If you want to find the draft cards for other ancestors:
https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/United_States_World_War_II_Draft_Records

AncestryDNA Results

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AncestryDNA has improved and I have finally taken the plunge! I also did this AncestryDNA Tour and learned some things.

First, it made me really think about the ranges. At first, I thought it was just an estimate of confidence, but it is actually the range of answers they got for me running the data through the system 1000 times. Wow. (Read more here.)

And it varies a lot. Here are my top four according to them:

  • 25% Finland (19-26%) – range is 7 and what they assigned me is at the high end
  • 18% Norway (0-19%) – range is 19 and what they assigned me is at the high end
  • 16% England & NW Europe (0-42%) – range is 42! and what they assigned me is at the low end
  • 14% Germanic Europe (0-26%) – range is 26 and what they assigned me is in the middle

It is interesting to look at how this compares to what I would expect from my paper research:

  • 25% Finland – right on
  • 12.5% Norway – AncestryDNA is a little higher
  • 12.5% Germanic Europe – close (this is really half Dutch and half German, but DNA results are not quite that detailed yet)
  • 12.5% French – AncestryDNA is low (they assigned 4% with the range 0-16)

I am very interested to see if that changes as things develop with the technology and reference populations. Or maybe I really did not inherit much French DNA. It is random after all.

Second, I also saw my great-grandparents differently. This became clear to me in a way it had not before:

  • William Laitala was fully Finnish
  • Katri Kemppainen was fully Finnish
  • Pete Fjerstad was fully Norwegian
  • Renie Middendorp was fully Germanic
  • Melena LaBlanc was fully French Canadian

The other three great-grandparents are a mixture of British, which is slowly becoming a bit more clear. I used to think that was all English. However, it is looking like the Holman line came from Wales and the Atchinson line came from Scotland. And now I see that Mabel Vipond’s mother’s line is the one I know the least about, so that it is on my list to tackle soon.

Cousins in nearly every state!

Next fun thing . . . I have cousins in nearly every state! Of course, many of these people are 4th cousins and I do not know them, but it is great to feel connected to people all over. 🙂

Most importantly, I do have many matches in here where I can see how we are related, including 1st cousins once removed, 2nd cousins, 3rd cousins and there is even a half third cousin! Hopefully, I will connect with someone who has information I am missing and share information they are missing.

Ellis Island and Immigration

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I just finished the book The Next Ship Home by Heather Webb. This book is set in 1902, which was a time of change for Ellis Island. They were dealing with some corruption. This book was not always fun to read – bad things happen to the main characters. However, I was glad to get a feel for what it was like coming across the ocean on a ship and going through Ellis Island since my great-grandmother went through there in 1905.

My great-grandmother, Katri Kemppainen, crossed the Atlantic Ocean via the Lucania. I hope she got through Ellis Island quickly, but that still would have been 3-5 hours there. And they would have used the button hook to do the icky eye exam. From what I can tell, she didn’t have anything that would have detained her. From the ship’s manifest, she could read and write and she was listed as a servant. She was 26, in good health and had $20. She was going to Chisholm MN to meet a friend who had paid her ticket: Vilho Laitala at Box 127 in Chisholm. Yes, that was the man who would become her husband in 1906.

In addition, the book made me think about how culture and language shape who we are and it was good to read about women who defied the conventions of their time.

Picture of Ellis Island 1905

I have been interested in the immigration stories of my ancestors for a long time and of course Ellis Island was an important part of the experience in the US for decades. From 1892 to 1954, 12 million immigrants went through Ellis Island.

If you want to learn more about Ellis Island, check out their official site. You can look up passengers and see ship manifests. There is also an oral history project where you can listen to people talk about their experiences going through Ellis Island. You can see a picture of the great hall here. Katri would have seen something like this – arrivals in 1904.

Solomon Holman and Y-DNA

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It looks like Solomon Holman is our ancestor and my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. The evidence is not ideal, but here is where we are . . .

We have been able to document back to Charles Holman for a long time: https://jillholman.com/genealogy/holman-timeline-for-four-generations/

But then we had a brick wall for decades.

Then a few years ago, I noticed that cousins were starting to claim Solomon Holman, born in 1671, as our ancestor, but they didn’t seem to have much evidence.

In the Holmans in America book, we can trace down from Solomon Holman to Abel Holman. (Also, be sure to check out the pictures of the Holman farm in West Newbury MA on page 2 and the pictures of the gravestones on page 4.)

The tricky bit is connecting Charles to Abel. We cannot find a birth record for Charles, nor his brother James, and the census only named head of household back then. To make matters worse, Abel died young, at 40.

One clue is his wife Louise, who married Silas Baldwin after Abel died. Then a Baldwin ends up with Charles’ brother James in Kossuth, Iowa in the 1870 census. Technically, it says a male, aged 75, who was born in Vermont. Was this Louise and they made a mistake in the census or another Baldwin? Silas did have a brother named Lewis, though the dates don’t quite match up there either.

Next, note that the Abel linked to Charles at Findagrave appears to be wrong: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/66277843/charles-thomas-holman

Yes, to to make this even more complicated, there were two Abel Holmans born in 1791!

  • One Abel was born to Samuel and Sarah in VT. He married Nancy and then later Electa. He lived for many years in New York and died in 1861. He did not have a son named Charles, nor James. Learn about him over here.
  • Our Abel is the one born to Francis and Sarah in MA. He ended up in VT. There is a probate record for him in 1832.

One more thing you might notice if you trace through the Holmans in America book: Francis Holman married Sarah Holman. Yes, her name was Holman before she married a Holman and they were first cousins. I could not get the software to cooperate, but in this chart, there should be a line from Sarah to her parents, Solomon and Sarah, and then there should be a line from Solomon to John and Judith:

Paternal Ancestors

One last bit of evidence – recently, I connected with a distant cousin where we were the only Y-DNA match at the 111 marker level . She feels confident she can trace back to Solomon Holman with many generations in the Holmans in America book.

Combining the DNA results with the clues from paper research, it seems likely that Solomon Holman is our ancestor.

P.S. Check out two versions of Solomon’s origin story:

1 – The Holman family migrated from Wales to the Bermuda Islands between 1670 and 1690. It included three sons, born in Wales. Two of the sons, Solomon and John, were seized by a press-gang and brought to Newburyport. There they succeeded in escaping from the British ship.

John, the younger, settled in North Carolina. Solomon settled in Newbury ; married a Miss Mary Barton of Old York. (Benedict)

2 – Solomon Holman, was one of the early settlers in the west parish of Newbury. He was born in England, served seven years on board of a man of war, ran away in Bermuda, when sent after milk, secreted himself in the barn till the vessel sailed, and lived by milking the cows. He was discovered by the owner of the barn, who befriended him, and gave him employment. He afterward married his employer’s daughter Mary, came to Newbury, built him a barn, and then a log house, on land of which he bought thirteen acres for a fat heifer. The land is now owned by Mr. Jonathan Ilsley, from whom I obtained this account. Mr. Holman died May seventh, 1753, in his eighty-second year. (Coffin)

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