Person of the Week 4

Person of the Week 

#4

Michael McQuillan

Born: November 20th, 1842 in England

Married: May 1st, 1876 to Hannah Ratigan in Massachusetts  

Died: February 8th, 1919

Born in England, Michael's parents came from Ireland to England during the Great Potato famine. He worked for a cloth mill company and was transferred to Massachusetts, where he married Hannah Ratigan, also from Ireland. After a few months, he quit and they took the train as far as it would go. They stopped and homesteaded in Heartwell Nebraska. There, they homesteaded and had their children:

William McQuillan
James McQuillan
Thomas McQuillan
Joseph McQuillan
John McQuillan
Grace McQuillan
Catherine McQuillan

In the early 1900's, they moved to Meridian Mississippi due to Michael's lingering asthma. (He thought the south had cleaner air.) Michael died on February 8th, 1919. He is buried in Meridian.
Thanks for reading!
JM

Omaha Coin Club

Currently, I am a member of the Omaha Coin Club. The Coin Club is the oldest club of it's kind in Nebraska, having been organized in 1934. It's mission is to "encourage and promote study and interest in the science of munismatis and cultivat friendly relantions among collectors, students and dealers." They have monthly meetings every third Friday at the Douglas/Sarpy County 4-H building.

 At the meetings, there is a Y.N. meeting and then a business meeting. There is a member drawing for $5 as well as a drawing for several prizes such as coins, paper money, and mint products. After this, there is normally a presentation given by one of the members about a certain type of coin. (Did I mention that there are treats??) There is also a silent auction every month and a few dealers who sit in the back and sell coins. The membership is made up of mostly older people, and they are all willing to talk to you and offer you much of the knowledge that they have. I thoroughly enjoy each of the meetings! I hope that some day that you will come to one of the meetings! Here is the price for membership:
Traditional Membership (Printed Newsletter)

Adult Member: $10
Spouse: $5
YN: $5
Family: $20

Electronic Membership (Email Newsletter)
Regular Member: $5
Spouse: $2.50
YN: $2.50

Family: $10 
 Here is a link to their website.

Thanks for reading!!
JM

Person of the Week

Person of the Week 3

Adam Frank Zoucha

Birth: 1884, Poland

Married: To Mary Chohun on ???

Death: July 22nd, 1948 in Cedar Rapids, Nebraska

Son of Joseph and Eva Zoucha. Buried in Cedar Rapids, Nebraska. His children are: (as far as we know)

Raymond Zoucha

Robert Zoucha?????

He and his family lived in Cedar Rapids Nebraska. This is where most of the people in Nebraska with the surname Zoucha originate from this family. If you have anything to add or any questions about this person, please just leave a comment and I would be happy to answer you! Thanks for reading!

JM

A Great Book

This is a Book Report. Sort of. Actually, this is a quick summary of a book that I will be writing a report on. The name of the book is:
A History of the Ancient World
By: Susan Wise Bauer
Pub: 2007

In history, we are currently studying the ancient world. This book is the basis for our history curriculum, which my Mom has made by combining several different books. She assigns me chapters every week, and I read them. Hopefully, every couple of weeks, I will write a report on one of the chapters that I have read, and post it here. Currently, I am in chapter 49 (There are over 100), which is about the Greek dark age.
Here is a link to the book on Amazon.com:
 Thanks for reading!
JM

Person of the Week

Person of the Week 2

Vynetta Albers

Born: June 2nd, 1902 in Polk County, NE

Married: To Hubert Alt 15 February, 1927 in Polk County, NE

Died: November 7th, 1987 in David City, NE

She was the daughter of John and Maggie Albers. She lived in Nebraska for most of her life. Her children are:

Richard Alt

Maxine Alt

 She is buried in David City Nebraska. If you have questions or additions to this post, if you could post it in comments, I would love to hear your question. (our addition!) Thanks for Reading!

JM

The Ancient Lives Program

Hello everyone!
This blog post will explain the Ancient LIves Program. The Ancient Lives Program is a program of Oxford University. The program allows the viewer (And Translator, if you want to) to see the The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, which were discovered in the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus in Ancient Egypt and most of them are currently held at Oxford University. They were discovered in between 1896 and 1907. The dates range  from the 3rd century B.C. to the 7th century A.D..  500,000 scraps of them were found! Scholars have been studying them since then, but they have hardly scratched the surface! So, the Ancient Lives Program has put them all online. They are requesting that the public come and help them translate the papyri online. There's no need for knowledge of Greek or Latin, you click on the letter and then choose the letter it looks like from a keyboard on your screen. There's is also a tutorial at the beginning. If you have a little time on your hands, you should give it a shot. It's fun and you are helping scholars learn about the everyday life of Ancient people. Here's the link: http://ancientlives.org/transcribe
Thanks for reading!
JM

One of the Papyri. THis one is Amos 2 from the Bible.

Person of the Week

Person of the Week 1

Jonas Eschliman

Born: May 24th, 1862

Married: To Elizebeth Baur in 1882

Died: November 8th, 1918

The son of Abraham and Mary Eschliman, Jonas spent all of his life in rural Nebraska. His children are: 

Richard Eschliman

Leroy Eschliman

Irving Eschliman

George Eschliman

Estella Eschliman

Jonas Eschliman is currently buried in Greeley, Nebraska, in the protestant side of the Sacred Heart Cemetery. He is buried in a family plot along with his wife and several of his children.

If you have a question, please leave a comment and I can give you some information. Happy Columbus Day!

Thanks for reading!

JM 

Donald Eschliman

Last weekend, I heard an interesting story that I am currently investigating. According to my Grandma Myers and my Great Grandma (Eschliman) Zoucha, My Great Great Great Uncle had a son named Donald R. Eschliman. He was the son of Richard and Lucile Eschliman. He was probably job hunting after serving in the military during World War II. Sometime in between 1945 and 1950, his parents received a post card which said that he would be in Greeley, Nebraska, where all of the Eschlimans lived, in a few days. He was never heard from again.


Now, after some preliminary research, I believe I've found him. I looked on Ancestry.com for Census records. What I found matched what Great Grandma had said. Then I went to the website "FindAGrave.com", which has over 80 million grave sites cataloged. There, I found the same dates I found in the census and it matched the information that Grandma had told me. At that point, I put him on my family tree. The family always thought that he had been riding a boxcar back and had been mugged and killed. I don't think so. Why exactly he didn't come home I still have not figured out. However, I believe that he is buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona.

Thanks to FindAGrave.com for the pictures of the Cemetery. 

So, although I believe that I have found him, I still don't know why he never came back. So, the mystery continues. If you have any information on Donald, if you could leave a comment, I would love to hear it. Thanks for reading!

JM 

Find an Eschliman!!

Here is a copy of a page of the 1880 Census (Top) and the 1940 Census (Bottom) See if you can find an Eschliman on one of these two!

P.S. I did find them. They are there.
JM

Book Report

Welcome to the Book Report section of my blog! So far, there are no book reports, but hopefully I will be able to get one or two on each month! Thanks!

JM

Genealogy

Welcome to the Genealogy section of my blog! This will be the main tag in my blog, so this is where most of the posts SHOULD be. J  Here, I will post new and old information about the Myers family line, the McQuillan family line, the Eschliman family line, the Zoucha family line, the Lack family line, the Rasschaert family line, the Birkel family line, and the Alt family line.  Every week, I will post a ‘Person of the Week’. This post will consist of the name and Dates of a person, along with as much about them as I know. At some point, I would like to scan the 100’s of pages that I have of histories, but first, we’d need a scanner. If you have any questions or corrections of information I have, if you could post a comment I will get back to you. Thanks for reading! I hope you’ll be back!

JM

NHD

Welcome to the NHD section of my blog! Everything that is tagged NHD will be an update on my NHD project. National History Day. National History Day is a competition in which students do primary and secondary research and then translate that research into a poster board, a website, a paper, a performance, or a documentary. There are two divisions: Junior (For Junior High) and Senior (For high school students).  The last two years, my friend William Scheopner and I have done a group documentary. The first year, we made a documentary about the fight to turn Nebraska’s legislature into a unicameral. We won Districts and State and proceeded to Nationals in Washington D.C. but we didn’t make it to Finals. In the second year, we made a documentary about Cyrus McCormick’s reaper, the ancestor of the combine. We won Districts, State and as well as special award from the Great Plains association. We went on to Nationals in Washington. We managed to make it to finals. The finals judges deemed us the best and we won the whole Junior Group Documentary category! This year William and I are already beginning work on our topic: The Homestead Act of 1862.

JM

Welcome!

Hello! And welcome to my blog Embrace the Geekness! The blog posts on this blog will be devoted to the study of history (Especially the history of my family; The Myers family) On the side bar, you will find four tags: Home, Genealogy, NHD, and Book Reports. Genealogy will be a tab with all of the posts related to the history of my family. NHD stands for National History Day, which is a competition in which students do primary and secondary research and then translate that research into a poster board, a website, a paper, a performance, or a documentary. I am in my third year of competing. Book reports will be book reports on history books that I am reading in school. And My Family will be an introduction to my family. Thanks for reading and I hope you’ll come back soon!

JM