I setup a wiki-based area of my genealogy site that I can use to store all of the miscellaneous information from my tree. Tidbits, letters, information, etc. The first thing I posted is a letter that my great-great uncle, Edwin Corrigan, had wrote to some other family members. Sadly, Edwin died just last June at the age of 95. The letter includes a lot of insight into life in the early 1900s in northern Wisconsin. It’s a very interesting read for anyone who enjoys history. Here is a small excerpt, but you can read the whole thing on the wiki if you’d like, but it is pretty long. Plan on more than few minutes.

To begin with, the were two Corrigan families – the first four children were born in Orillia (Mara county, Ontario.) Pa’s first wife, Ellen Ferguson, was buried in Washburn, WI across the bay from Ashland. Don’t know just when they came to the area – nor how long they lived in Washburn. The youngest child, Thomas Francis, was born in Washburn, Sept. 15, 1886. Shortly after that they must have moved to Sanborn, where Pa built a saloon and boarding house (the building is still there, but has had an addition put on it.) Three of our family members were born while the folks lived in Sanborn, the rest born (at the Summit) in Ashland. Due to an early stroke, Pa had to get out of the business. He did some kind of a trade with property and got property on the outskirts of Ashland, which included a small five room house and building which house a saloon, dance hall and gambling rooms. Remember these were in the early logging days when Ashland housed many saloons, houses of ill-repute, etc. They lived a short time in the large building and then had the small house moved closer to the road – eventually he sold the building (the hall, etc) to the Town of Sanborn to be used as the Town Hall.

Read the whole thing - Edwin Corrigan Letter

There is an interesting story about my great-great-great grandfather that was told to me by my grandmother.

Charles Van Price was born in the mid 1800s. He came to the U.S. in 1874, and went to Dousman, Wisconsin. He worked for Mr. Dousman, later moved to Little Chute, Wisconsin, then to Phlox, Wisconsin in 1887. Tragedy struck however, because he, my great grandfather, decided to see Holland again. He sold his land earlier, and was now one of the wealthiest men in that part of the state. While staying with his daughter, Effie, in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 1922, he went grocery shopping for her and was not seen again. His daughter found he had withdrawn all his savings (a very sizeable amount) and left for Europe. They traced him to Antwerp, Belgium — then all trace was gone. He was never heard from again. After investigating, it was assumed that he returned to Holland from Milwaukee.

I haven’t had too much luck finding any more info on Charles in Holland/Belgium myself. I plan on seeing what I can find.

Good news. Today I may have broken through one of my genealogy walls. I was doing a little searching on some of my loose ends to see if I could find any more information. Today, I was in my maternal line, specifically on the Peter & Ida Muhm family. I’ve not had much luck on this family, except for finding the names of Peter’s parents in the 1860 census. I had “Schwandie” as Ida’s maiden name, but that was direct from family. I’ve never had any luck finding info on it, not even one person with that last name.

So, I came across a WorldTree entry at Ancestry for the Muhm family. It had the Muhm line back 3 generations to a Johannes Muhm born about 1741 in Germany. Very nice. Also, it had Ida’s maiden name listed as Schwinte. Different, but it may come in handy since I have no luck with the other one. The only downside is that the contact info for the submission is listed as “Unknown.” Though, I put the info in my family tree file in case it’s correct. It’ll at least help me dig further.

I added more photos to the photo gallery including the Corrigan and Braatz families.

I’ve published my basic family tree/ancestors using phpGedView again. Hopefully, they fixed the problem with the last version that I had. Cross our fingers.

I only exported my direct ancestral line because I didn’t want the file to be too big so it caused any issues. We’ll see how it goes for now. If you need any more info on anyone in the tree, let me know.

You can view it via this link, or click on the “Family Tree” link on the top menu: Ancestors of Brian Zalewski