![By Jayu from Harrisburg, PA, U.S.A. (Hummelstown, Pennsylvania) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/www.copperleafgenealogy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hummelstown-e1460247526819.jpg?resize=600%2C450)
By Jayu from Harrisburg, PA, U.S.A. (Hummelstown, Pennsylvania) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
So this Saturday’s fun is answering a few questions:
Name four places on my ancestral home bucket list I’d like to visit:
- Hummelsville Pennsylvania! My paternal grandmother was a Hummel and she’s part of the reason I got started in genealogy. I would LOVE to go where my ancestors used to live. The last one was my 3x great-grandfather, Jacob Hummel, who made the trek from PA to Michigan.
- Vukovar, Croatia – This is where my great-grandfather lived before he came back to America (where he was born and probably lived for less than a year before his parents brought him to Austria-Hungary).
- Nova Pazova, Servia – this is where the above great-grandfather’s father supposedly was born and lived. I say supposedly because his name was Friedrich, which was quite popular, and his surname Langeneck is also a lot more popular than I expected.
- Orleans County, New York – I get here with the Witherell line and can find some information (like marriage records) but I need more! Going here would help so much in my research.
What are the four most unusual surnames in your family tree?
- McGriff (To me only maybe – it reminds me of the McGruff crime dog) – in Michigan, Ohio, possibly Indiana, and Pennsylvania
- Little – in Michigan and Ohio
- Bitzing- Michigan, Illinois, and possibly Germany – This one is unusual and has SO many variations
- Hockey – England and Michigan – it’s one of my favorite sports!
Which four brick walls would you most like to smash through?
- David Witherell (1813-1862) – I want to identify his parents for certain and figure out where the Witherells were from!
- Lillian (McLeod) Witherell (1861-1895) – My Scottish connection! Or so I believe. I want to know who her parents are and where in Scotland they were from!
- Henry Bitzing (1813-1895) – Came from Germany to America between 1845-1850 and I want to know more about where in Germany he was from and, of course, who his parents were
- Friedrich Langeneck (1885-1916?) – I want to confirm that the Austria-Hungarian soldier I found in a POW camp in Russia, who later died there, is my ancestor. And then go from there to see who his parents were and where they were from. I weirdly found a family tree that shows he did NOT die in World War I but remarried… which is not the story my grandfather heard from his father about him!
- It was hard picking four – I have more than that!
Play along if you’d like! Go to the link for the questions and directions on the Genea-Musings page and comment your answers or create a blog post! Enjoy 🙂