Monday Madness: Ziegler - Steckmeyer - Koehler Monday, July 26, 2010

Today the madness is mine! I thought I'd look for "Georg Ziegler" who was a mayor of a small town in the early 1800s in Wuerttemburg.... fun with google.de - why not! What I found wasthe name Georg Ziegler as a mayor is actually kind of common! Drat. Well, there were two towns Weil am Rhein near Basel and another further south with a great listing of their buergermeister for each year. In the end, this did not lead my any closer to an answer on which village the Wisconsin Ziegler came in the 1850s.

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Monday Madness: Poisson Ancestors Monday, June 28, 2010

I spent a good deal of energy in 2009 researching my grandmother's paternal branch - Fish/Poisson. The challenge being that I can not find a document in US records that clearly indicates the parents of my 2nd great grandfather Victor Poisson. What makes this challenging is that my ancestor Victor was apparently born "Hector". I learned he was from the Trois Rivieres/Gentilly region - but when I search the Drouin records - I find two likely candidates and do not currently have any additional information to break the "tie" as to which "Hector" is my ancestor.

That being said, I learned that Jean Poisson (b. abt 1612) is the ancestor of all French Canadians with the name Poisson and I was lucky enough to find several living distant cousins along the way to share the experience. But I wasn't prepared for what happened next!

I started researching my grandmother's maternal branch - Courtois. I again encountered the name "Poisson" - this time, it is first as Anne-Marie Poisson, my 5th great-grandmother.

Then, I found an article in the Southern California Genealogical Society newsletter with transcribed names of those who went to Canada from a village in France. Turns out that Jean Poisson is on that list, as well as his spouse, Jacqueline Chambois. See some photos here of Tourouvre, France.

While I can not yet complete the connection to Jean Poisson on my "Poisson" branch, I'm now able to trace back to him via my "Courtois" branch! Super!

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