Methodology Monday and Labor Day with Philippina Kicherer

Genealogy is about remembrance, not just descendants. Or as Tom Jones puts it in Mastering Genealogical Proof, genealogical questions are usually about a relationship, identity, or activity (pp. 7-8).

Judy Kellar Fox's article leading off the June 2014 National Genealogical Society Quarterly is an example of an activity question, but not one like whether someone served in the Revolution. Her subject, Philippina Magdalena (Kaiser) Kicherer, emigrated and married late, helped raise stepchildren, ran a Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, farmhouse, and died in 1909.

How and why did she come there?

Without the aid of family letters or reminiscences, Fox spotted the name of a man who was Philippina's associate, not her husband's, and the name of a particular part of Germany rarely included in US census designations -- and worked out Philippina's otherwise forgotten story. Sometimes the supposedly dry bones of technical genealogy are the only way to learn those stories.





Judy Kellar Fox, "Why and How Did Philippina Kicherer Immigrate to Jefferson County, Pennsylvania?," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 102 (June 2014): 85-92.

Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday and Labor Day with Philippina Kicherer," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 1 September 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Not just Palatines

I hope some readers are as ignorant as I was: the organization Palatines to America isn't limited to migrants from one part of Germany, it covers all German-speaking migrants. The group's full name is Palatines to America German Genealogy Society and it's headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, where it will hold its national conference June 19-21. (Thanks, Olive Tree Genealogy Blog.)

If I could get there, I'd just love to hear Swiss expert Maralyn Wellauer talk on "Sources and Strategies for Successful Pre-19th century Swiss Genealogical Research."

Kannel, Gilles, Ingli

Three intertwined Midwestern families from western Germany (Gilles) and central Switzerland (Kannel, Ingli) are chronicled in Jeff Kannel's 547-page book The Kannel, Gilles, and Ingli Families of Plum City, Wisconsin, published Sep 2007. According to the news release at the Kenosha Writers' Group it's based on 15 years' research and contains "168 pages of genealogical information," as well as plenty of local, national, and international historical context. (No word on whether it footnotes all statements of fact that aren't common knowledge, but we can hope!) The families spent time in Highland (Madison County), Illinois; Fond Du Lac County, Wisconsin; and Plum City (Pierce County), Wisconsin.

Ordering information at a PDF link on the Kenosha Writers' Group site. As of 23 Jan, it wasn't on worldcat.org.