Tag Archives: Miller

A breakthrough on the German branch of my family tree

Posted on December 13, 2014 by johnkowal

I have written many posts about my German great-great-grandmother Mary Miller and her daughter Tillie. The fact that I even had German ancestry was one of my first big genealogical discoveries. No one in my family ever mentioned that my … Continue reading →

Posted in Family Line - Agin, Germany, New Jersey | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

The family plot

Posted on November 7, 2014 by johnkowal

You might think it would be easy to find the final resting places of ancestors from my mother’s side of the family who lived in nearby New Jersey and only died within the last century. Think again. In earlier posts, … Continue reading →

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Six immigrant ancestors and the fault lines of World War I

Posted on July 15, 2014 by johnkowal

To the day they died, I’m sure my immigrant ancestors remembered where they were when they learned of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, one hundred years ago. That calculated act of terrorism plunged the countries of their … Continue reading →

Posted in Family Line - Agin, Family Line - Bosakowski, Family Line - Kowal, Family Line - Sabol, Germany, Kharucha Vel'ka, New Jersey, New York City, Slovakia, Zalozce/Zaliztsi | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Mary Miller’s fifteen minutes of fame

Posted on August 14, 2012 by johnkowal

When I started my little family history research project, I learned I had a German great-great-grandmother named Mary Miller (I’m guessing it was originally Maria Müller). Mary was born in the early 1850s. She emigrated with her young daughter Tillie … Continue reading →

Posted in Family Line - Agin, New Jersey | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Thinking too much about cemeteries

Posted on March 25, 2012 by johnkowal

When I started my family history project, I didn’t think I’d be spending so much time on the topic of cemeteries. But when you keep coming upon roadblocks, as I have in my efforts to trace my New Jersey roots, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Family Line - Agin, Family Line - Sabol, Germany, New Jersey | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Zeroing in on Jacob and Tillie Agin

Posted on January 14, 2012 by johnkowal

A year into my little family history research project, I have made some progress in piecing together the story of my maternal great-grandparents Jacob and Tillie Agin. But there is still so much I don’t know. I know that Jacob … Continue reading →

Posted in Family Line - Agin, Germany, New Jersey | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Old obituaries yield new clues about my grandparents’ families

Posted on January 4, 2012 by johnkowal

In the space of a year, I have made a lot of progress researching my mother’s side of the family. I have traced the ancestry of my maternal grandfather Harry Agin back to my fourth great-grandfather James Agin (1759-1836), a … Continue reading →

Posted in Family Line - Agin, Family Line - Sabol, New Jersey | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

My great-great-grandmother married a “woman hater”

Posted on March 12, 2011 by johnkowal

When I learned my great-grandfather Jacob Agin had married a German immigrant named Tillie, I wondered how I’d ever find her maiden name or who her parents were. But I soon happened upon census records showing that my grandfather Harry … Continue reading →

Posted in Family Line - Agin, Germany, New Jersey | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Jacob and Tillie Agin

Posted on March 12, 2011 by johnkowal

My great-grandfather Jacob Sylvester Agin was born on December 19, 1868 in Hopewell, New Jersey. He was the oldest child of Samuel Davis Agin, a Civil War veteran who had recently returned home to start a family with his new … Continue reading →

Posted in Family Line - Agin, Germany, New Jersey | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Identifying my eight great-grandparents

Posted on March 6, 2011 by johnkowal

When I started my little family history project two months ago, I could only name two great-grandparents. Now I can finally identify all eight. The last holdout was a great-grandmother on my father’s side, the mother of my grandfather Alex … Continue reading →

Posted in Family Line - Agin, Family Line - Bosakowski, Family Line - Kowal, Family Line - Sabol, Germany, Kharucha Vel'ka, New Jersey, Slovakia, Zalozce/Zaliztsi | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment