Austin Families Newsletters, Genealogy

Austin Families of America Winter Newsletter

Austin Families Association of America Objectives

• To gather, preserve and disseminate Austin genealogies and Austin family histories.
• To establish a specialized database of Austin information that can assist genealogists and family members to learn as much as possible about their Austin heritage.
• To foster acquaintances and long-term friendships among the members of all branches of Austin families.

Click the link to read: Austin-Family-Newsletter-Winter-25.pdf

Tressie Woodard

General Wainwright on Corregidor

If I have my family history right, Uncle Johnny, John Woodard, My Aunt Tressie’s second husband, was on Corregidor Island when it felled.  He managed to survive the Bataan Death March only to spend the next 42 months as a Japanese POW (prisoner of war).  The Japanese used him and many others, as slave labor during this time.  For my money, Uncle Johnny should be inducted into the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame along with the brother-in-law he never met, Paul Henry Carr.

Herr Schulze, aka Cousin Perry, sent the following around as an email.  I decided to add it as a post to this site.  Best I can figure it is from a Face page, entitled History Nerds HQ.

He surrendered 80,000 men and spent three years believing America saw him as a failure. He was wrong. They gave him the Medal of Honor.

May 6, 1942. General Jonathan Wainwright stood on Corregidor Island, staring at what remained of his command.

For months, American and Filipino forces had held the Philippines against impossible odds. After General Douglas MacArthur evacuated to Australia in March, Wainwright inherited a nightmare: trapped soldiers, dwindling supplies, no reinforcements coming, and a Japanese force that vastly outnumbered his own.

On Bataan Peninsula, 70,000 Allied troops had already surrendered in April. Now, on the tiny fortress island of (more…)

USS Samuel B. Roberts

Tablets of the Missing – American Military Cemetery, Manila

El torbellino de Texas, aka Perry Samuel Schulze, sent this around a few days ago in an email.  While not directly related to Paul H. Carr or the USS Samuel B. Roberts, it touches on that theme and was interesting to read.  Plus the video at the end was a bonus, and it is worth you time to watch…IMHO.
Here is the link to the article Herr Schulze passed around:  Tablets of the Missing – American Military Cemetery
Enjoy
Genealogy

“Damn’d Roguery”: Hillsborough’s Regulator Riot, 250 Years Later

A while back I posted an article about this historic event as my 4th great grandfather, John Pugh, participated in the Hillsborough Riot: My 4th Great Grandfather pardoned of his crimes

Here is a nice video about this piece of family history.

 

John Pugh –> Peninah Pugh –> Matilda B Nichols –> John Franklin Austin –> Minnie Mae Austin –> 

Austin Families Newsletters, Genealogy

Austin Families of America Summer Newsletter

Austin Families Association of America Objectives

• To gather, preserve and disseminate Austin genealogies and Austin family histories.
• To establish a specialized database of Austin information that can assist genealogists and family members to learn as much as possible about their Austin heritage.
• To foster acquaintances and long-term friendships among the members of all branches of Austin families.

 

Click link to read: Austin Family Newsletter Summer 25

Genealogy

Possible Derivation of Surname Austin

From the book: History of Pope County, Arkansas Vol. I

The surname Austin is believed to have come from the baptismal name “son of Augustine.” The soldiers of Caesar’s Legions carried the name to Britain in 55 A.D. and when they left early in the 5th century the name had become well established among the native Britons. These early Austins flourished and by the 13th century there were more than a dozen coats-of-arms recorded for Austin families in the English counties of Kent, Surrey and Norfolk

Genealogy

History of Pope County, Arkansas Vol. I

There is a whole section in this book of local history on the Austins. A link to a PDF of the work is at the bottom of this posting.

I could have entitled this posting, Who Is Nancy Ann Austin for Real? There is a bit of a mystery here.

In this book it uses the LePetree last name for Nancy Ann (FamilySearch ID: LRHC-NVY) and calls George Trobaugh her step father.  Again none of this makes sense.  Nancy’s mother Martha Qualls (FamilySearch ID: LTTS-2YH) married George Trobaugh (FamilySearch ID: LHF1-RNF) when she was 16 in 1853.   Nancy’s birth date is November 1854. Another source, without documentation, stated that Martha was pregnant when she married her cousin George Trobaugh. No reference to any possible father if not George.

Maybe the two of them  took Nancy in???  I think those sort of arrangements were loose back then.  There would be ways to prove if she was the child of both or either of her listed parents, but it would involve DNA testing people I have no idea who they are or where they are.

And I cannot find LePetree or LaPetree in any genealogy or list of surnames.  Surnames tend to morph over time, so I am leaning to thinking it is a phonetic spelling of Lepetre or LiPetri or… which would make sense if her ancestry was Dutch and Italian. I also cannot find this name in Census records from the time.  That is not to say that they are not there, but I have not been able to locate them. I have searched a bit on possible variants of the surname, also without luck.

From the book:

John Franklin Austin was the son of Elihue (Elike)  and Matilda Austin. They lived in Illinois. John Austin was born March 29, 1850 in Shelby County, Illinois. The Austins were of Irish and English descent.

The wife of John F. Austin was formerly Nancy Ann LaPetree. She was sometimes called Nancy Ann Trobaugh because she had a stepfather — Mr. Trobaugh. The LaPetree clan is of Italian and Dutch descent.

Nancy Ann (LaPetree) Austin was born November 15,1854 in Richland County, Illinois. John F. and Nancy Ann were married December 12, 1872. They must have lived in Linn County, Missouri for a while after they were married because their first child, a son William Arthur, was born Sept. 30, 1873 in Linn County, Missouri. They must have moved back to Shelby County, Illinois sometime in 1874 because their second child, a son Charles Franklin was... and it goes on.

To see the complete book for this link: History of Pope County, Arkansas Vol. I

Genealogy

Our 25th Great Grandfather Responsible for Giving Bluetooth Its Name

First, let me say that some of the information I am finding on FamilySearch.org seems almost too incredulous to believe.  And as expressed elsewhere, I take it all with more than a few grains of salt.  I am not sure I really believe any of it, but it would be interesting to get a professional genealogist’s opinion. Having said that, FamilySearch is a well respected site for genealogy research.

I have had my DNA tested twice.  With FamiyTreeDNA, my DNA is 90% British Isles excluding Ireland, nine % Italian peninsula, and very minor smatterings in the Baltics and Arabia.  When I had my DNA tested via National Geographic, when they were doing such things, the results were vaguely similar except they listed my DNA as over 40% Danish or Norwegian. That makes sense as the Danes (Vikings) invaded the southeastern portion of England in the 800s and 900s, and of many of them settled there.  They also invaded and settled in what is now referred to as Normandy in France.  Later the Normans would invade England in 1066, in all likelihood amplifying my Viking DNA.

I have a streaming subscription to Great Courses Plus.  I cannot recommend this service enough.  The last couple weeks I have been watching a course on the Vikings.  In that course, they mentioned that a technology  we all use all the time, Bluetooth, was named after a man who was king of Denmark and Norway in the late 900s, Harald Bluetooth.  The inventor of Bluetooth, Jaap Haartsen, is Dutch and the company Swedish.  For some reason this name appealed to them. Look at the Bluetooth icon on one of your devices.  The icon’s provenance is the Viking rune character that is the name Harald Bluetooth.

Since I have been semi-immersed in family genealogy of late, I found this Viking king’s record on FamilySearch.  I then clicked the link to ascertain my relationship (if any) with this ancient Viking.  He came up as my 25th Great Grandfather, his blood eventually arriving to us via John Franklin Austin on Grandpa Austin’s mother’s side.  True or not, it is interesting to contemplate.

So now you know the rest of the story.

Genealogy

Perry meets His Great, Great Grandfather Schulze

And then there is Perry Schulze who is frequently insulted by the nefarious Rush Boys who call their esteemed cousin, the 6th Rush Boy.

As has been my wont of late, I was digging around in the genealogy at FamilySearch.org.  Perry obviously shares one side of his heritage with the aforementioned villainous Rush Boys, but I was curious to trace his father’s side.  I did not go back very far before I encountered his Great, Great Grandfather, Johann Ernst Schulz, Jr. with his second wife, Louise Schmidt, Perry’s Great, Great Grandmother in one of  those stiff, family photographs from the 1800s.  Someone had actually summed up his life up to his first marriage in a brief memory attached to his information at FamilySearch.

Click to see larger

Here is that story:

A Short History of Johann Ernst Schulz, Jr. ~~ Contributed By Lanell Rabner

John Ernst Schulze was born on 27 October 1826 in Anhalt-Dessau, Königreich Sachsen. He was the son of John Ernst Schulze, Sr. and Marie Dorothea Voigt, one of seven children, two brothers and five sisters. He was baptized on April 18, 1827.

In his youth, John Ernst followed the same occupation as his father, namely, cabinet making.

As was customary at the time, all young men had to serve in the military. When he came of age and entered the army, the March 1848 revolution broke out, seeking relief from heavy taxation and political censorship.The people wanted a constitution, social justice, and electoral reform. When the revolution failed, he fled to Tsaritsyn, Russia, which eventually became Stalingrad. During this time, many Germans left, immigrating to America from Wisconsin to Texas.

When the political turmoil settled down, he returned to Anhalt-Dessau and married Dorette Els, about 1853.

This is Lanell’s narrative end.

Looking at more detail on the FamilySearch listing, I discovered that he and Dorette had one child, Louise Marie Schulze, and Dorette died (reasons unknown) in 1860.  Sometime shortly after this he immigrated to the United States settling in Texas.  Wow, that took a lot of courage, desperation or maybe just unawareness of the conditions.  But to immigrate to this country, with a small child, during our Civil War or just after…

He married Louise Schmidt in 1867 in Texas, afterwards having a total of nine children. The nights must have been long and cold back in the day in Texas.

As I ignorantly stumble my way around the genealogy world, I have encountered some interesting stories, but I cannot help but think of how many other interesting stories have been lost forever.  How little do any of us know that as we lurch through life, just trying to get through each day the best we can, that we are making history.