1940 Family Reunion

I have been collecting news articles on my family in the Utah Digital Newspapers database for quite a while now. In my searching I found that my Lindeman family would travel from Salt Lake to Richfield, Utah almost every year and turn up in the society pages of the Richfield Reaper in town visiting with Mr. and Mrs. Rowley. This trip is about 165 miles and takes almost 3 hours to drive with today's roads and speeds. map it Mrs. Rowley and Mrs. Lindeman are both Thorups and they would often celebrate Mrs. Rowley's birthday with her.
Mrs. Rowley is Nephine Merabele Thorup - born 14 June 1890, married William Andrew Rowley
Mrs. Lindeman is Lizzie Henrietta Thorup - born 16 March 1894, married Russell Olonzo Lindeman
Both are daughters of Herman F. F. and Jensine Jensen.

Richfield Reaper June 20th 1940 Social News
I collected a few articles of their visits such as this one, but never had so many names been given. This must have been a big celebration for Nephine, her 50th birthday party. She had a much larger family gathering than usual and even had some come from Canada. It was interesting to have such a collection of names at a family gathering given in the newspaper. This is one thing I love about the newspapers. You can often make family connections based on the comings and goings of all the neighbors and their get togethers. The society pages used to be quite a gossip column and even an opinion or two from the reporter slip in once in a while which are always hilarious to read.

I recently came across some Thorup Photographs posted online by Gael Lindstrom (thanks a million by the way!) and found this Photo of a family reunion labeled "Thorup Family Reunion at the Andrew Rowley Home in Richfield, Utah June 16, 1940."
There was a photograph taken of the family at the reunion I have an article about!...And I actually found it! It is exciting to have these two pieces of recorded history put back together for us to see 68 years later.


If you can identify someone in the photo
please contact me or leave a comment. Thanks!

These are the names we have labeled thus far:


From L to R
Back Row: ?15 , child held ?16 , ?17 , Bertha Lindstrom, Wm Lindstrom, ?18, space across to man's head ?19 , Alvin White, Albert Bruening, Russell Lindeman
Row 2 and between: Lizzie Lindeman, ?6 , woman's head ?7 , ?8 , womans' head ?9 , child held ?10 , ?11 , man's head above/behind ?12 , child held ?13 , Wm Rowley, woman's head ?14 , Nephine Rowley, child in front is Lois Lindeman, Zina White, Gertrude Bruening, LeRoy Lindeman
Front Row: ?1 , ?2, child kneeling ?3 , Child sitting in front ?4, ?5

More Renstrom Surname Facts

From Ancestry.com using the 1880 US census and other records, they have put together these charts on any given surname. Here is what they have on Renstrom.

Top Occupations for Renstrom in the 1880 Census:

Works in cor...means works in corn planter works


Renstrom years of Immigration from NY Passenger Lists:

Our Renstroms came between 1872 and 1875.


Renstrom Ports of Departure from NY Passenger Lists:

I don't have the immigration information yet on our family, but I will post it when I find it.


Renstrom Life Expectancy from S. S. Death Index:

I guess not many Renstroms died in 1951


Top Places of Origin for Renstrom from NY Passenger Lists:

Our Renstroms are Swedish


Renstroms in the Civil War from Civil War Service Records:

We have a lot more serving Now!






Enter your Surname

Catherine Charlotte Renstrom & Who is "Mantlo"

Ok all you Renstrom descendants. I need your help on this one. I am seeking "Mantlo" who posted the following on Ancestry.com in July of 2000.

"Katherine Charlotte Renstrom
posted by: Mantlo Posted: 31 Jul 2000 11:12AM

my GGGrandma is Katherine Charlotte Renstrom, daughter of C.J. Renstrom from Stockholm, Sweden. She was born 5 July 1856, died 1882 in Huntsville, Utah. That is absolutely all I know - anyone else know some Renstrom history?"

We are the Huntsville Renstroms! I am anxious to respond but I have no contact information for him/her. From the other posts Mantlo has made I know that Mantlo is a surname in his/her family as well. If anyone knows who I am referring to, please direct them to this site as I have ample family information available.

I will post some of this information here:

This is my reply I posted on Ancestry.com
"The Renstroms of Huntsville are my family. I have recently started a blog where I am collecting family stories if you want to see it www.renstromrecord.blogspot.com. I am interested in where you got your information. I do have family records of a Catherine Charlotte, sister to our ancestor Andrew Pehrsson Renstrom. She was born in Sweden in 1856 and some of her family did settle in Huntsville. I don't have a lot of records on her but I do have genealogy on the family. The rest of the information you gave does not match what I have. We should compare our notes."

I think I know why you are finding it difficult to follow this line.

#1) CJ Renstrom is not the father of Catherine Charlotte from Huntsville. I do know who CJ is. The Huntsville church records list CJ Renstrom as the missionary who baptised this family. His full name is Carl Janson Renstrom.

#2) Her generation is the first to take the name Renstrom. Previously their name followed the pattern of patronymics. Her name was Catherine Charlotte Erickson before she took the name Renstrom. Her Father's name was Eric Pehrsson and his father's name was Pehr Ersson. It is our understanding that when they joined this new Church they all took the name Renstrom after the missionary who had baptised them.

Data on Catherine Charlotte Renstrom:

Born 4 Oct 1856 in Ramsjo, Uppsala, Sweden
Baptised 1872 or 1873
Married 3 July 1876 to Soren Peter Petersen
Died 17 Aug 1880

From the Huntsville Church Records FHL US/CAN Film
25997:
Soren Peter Peterson is the son of Peter Peterson and Maria
Born 1853 in Denmark
    His Father Peter Peterson is living here as well
      is the son of Peter Thomasen and Mete
      Born Jan 12 1821 in Denmark
    His Mother Maria Peterson is living here as well
      is the daughter of Soren Jensen and Bodel
      Born Oct 9 1823 in Denmark

Soren Peter Peterson's children are also listed
Maria Charlotte Peterson is the daughter of Soren Peter Peterson and Charlotte R.
Born Mar 22 1877 in Huntsville
Louisa Christine Peterson is the daughter of " and "
Born May 28 1878 in Huntsville
John Soren Peterson is the son of " and "
Born Sep 14 1879 in Huntsville

Catherine Charlotte is not listed here and the rest of the family is listed together so she is probably dead at the time of this recording. I will dig into these records a little more and see if I can find an accurate date.

One of her brothers is listed on the bottom of this same page

Eric August P. Renstrom son of Eric Pehrson and Catherine Kristine
Born Nov 8 1860 in Sweden


She was going by Charlotte and living in Huntsville with her spouse and three children and in-laws in the 1880 census recorded on June 3rd:

Petersen, Soren   White, Male, 27yrs, Married, Farmer, cannot read or write, born in Denmark, parents born in Denmark

, Charlotte    White, Female, 25yrs, Married, Wife, Keeping House, born in Sweden, parents born in Sweden

, Mary    White, Female, 4yrs, Daughter, born in Utah

, Louisa    White, Female, 2yrs, Daughter, born in Utah

, John    White, Male, 7 months, born in October, Son, born in Utah

Petersen, Peter    White, Male 59yrs, Married, Farmer, born in Denmark, parents born in Denmark

, Mary    White, Female, 57yrs, Wife, Married, Keeping House, born in Denmark, parents born in Denmark

Photos and more records will be posted soon.

How Common is the Renstrom Surname?

I thought this was appropriate for the Renstrom Record:
This information is from the US Census Bureau and posted on this site mongabay.com













Renstrom is one of the very uncommon Surnames in the US
Guess which Surname is ranked #1 for most common in the US.

Surnames

Surname	Rank in US	# in US	Frequency out of every 100,000
Renstrom	32939	656	0.24
Smith	1	2,376,206	880.85

Renstrom Surname Distribution in 2000

"RENSTROM is identified by the U.S. Bureau of the Census as a surname with more than 100 occurrences in the United States for the year-2000 U.S. Census. In "Demographic Aspects of Surnames from Census 2000", the Census Bureau tabulated the surnames of all people who had obtained Social Security Numbers by the year 2000.

RENSTROM ranks # 32939 in terms of the most common surnames in the United States for 2000.

RENSTROM had 656 occurences in the 2000 Census, according the U.S. government records.

Out of a sample of 100,000 people in the United States, RENSTROM would occur an average of 0.24 times.

Race / ethnic origin

The race categories shown in these files are the modified race categories used in the Census Bureau's population estimates program. All people were categorized into six mutually exclusive racial and Hispanic origin groups: "White only", "Black only", "American Indian and Alaskan Native only", "Asian and Pacific Islander only", "Two or More Races", and "Hispanic".

For the last name of RENSTROM the Census Bureau reports the following race / ethnic origin breakdown:
98.17 percent, or 644 total occurences, were "Non-Hispanic White Only"
Insignificant percent, or Less than 100 total occurences, were "Non-Hispanic Black Only"
0 percent, or Less than 100 total occurences, were "Non-Hispanic Asian and Pacific Islander Only"
Insignificant percent, or Less than 100 total occurences, were "Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaskan Native"
0.76 percent, or 5 total occurences, were "Non-Hispanic of Two or More Races"
0.91 percent, or 6 total occurences, were "Hispanic Origin"

____________________________________

Smith Surname Distribution in 2000


"SMITH is identified by the U.S. Bureau of the Census as a surname with more than 100 occurrences in the United States for the year-2000 U.S. Census. In "Demographic Aspects of Surnames from Census 2000", the Census Bureau tabulated the surnames of all people who had obtained Social Security Numbers by the year 2000.

SMITH ranks # 1 in terms of the most common surnames in the United States for 2000.

SMITH had 2,376,206 occurences in the 2000 Census, according the U.S. government records.

Out of a sample of 100,000 people in the United States, SMITH would occur an average of 880.85 times.

Race / ethnic origin

The race categories shown in these files are the modified race categories used in the Census Bureau's population estimates program. All people were categorized into six mutually exclusive racial and Hispanic origin groups: "White only", "Black only", "American Indian and Alaskan Native only", "Asian and Pacific Islander only", "Two or More Races", and "Hispanic".

For the last name of SMITH the Census Bureau reports the following race / ethnic origin breakdown:
73.35 percent, or 1,742,947 total occurences, were "Non-Hispanic White Only"
22.22 percent, or 527,993 total occurences, were "Non-Hispanic Black Only"
0.4 percent, or 9,505 total occurences, were "Non-Hispanic Asian and Pacific Islander Only"
0.85 percent, or 20,198 total occurences, were "Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaskan Native"
1.63 percent, or 38,732 total occurences, were "Non-Hispanic of Two or More Races"
1.56 percent, or 37,069 total occurences, were "Hispanic Origin"

NOTE: Fields suppressed for confidentiality are assigned the value "Insignifcant"

The presentation of data on this site focuses on summarized aggregates of counts and characteristics associated with surnames, and, as such, do not in any way identify any specific individuals.

All data is dervied from David L. Word, Charles D. Coleman, Robert Nunziata and Robert Kominski (2008). "Demographic Aspects of Surnames from Census 2000". U.S. Census Bureau."

Map Your Surname
__________________________________________

I had a request for information on some of our other Surnames:

Surnames

Surname	Rank in US	# in US	Frequency out of every 100,000
Smith	1	2,376,206	880.85
Berg	637	48,480	17.97
Lindeman	6479	4,974	1.8
Renstrom	32939	656	0.24
Thorup	49159	402	0.15

It looks like our Thorup surname is even less common with only 402 Thorups listed in the United States as of 2000.

Berg Surname Distribution in 2000


Lindeman Surname Distribution in 2000


Thorup Surname Distribution in 2000


Map Your Surname
__________________________________________

Alternate Surname Spellings

"Why can't I find my Ancestor's Records?" Have you tried alternate surname spellings? Here are four different records for the same Lindeman family spelled four different ways.

Using Alternate Surname Spellings for your Ancestor can open up a world of records that may not otherwise be found. Being flexible on locations, dates, spellings, and using nicknames or looking for them among relatives can all be useful in finding those missing records. Here is a presentation I put together using Kimberly Powell's outline posted on genealogy.about.com titled Top 10 Search Tips for Finding Alternate Surname Spellings and Variations. Click on this lesson link for tips, examples and other helpful websites that can guide you in your search.

Using Alternate Surname Spellings

Remember--click on the slide to advance the lesson, not on the arrows. Use it just like a PowerPoint presentation.

Another problem I have been having in locating Ancestors by the way their name is spelled is in the digital newspaper collections. OCR or Optical Character Recognition is an amazing new technology being used to index records. Rather than having a human read every page of every paper being digitized to create a searchable index, this technology allows it to be done in a single scan. Characters are recognized and "translated" into searchable text. In essence, the computer can now do the reading and searching for us in seconds, directing us to the exact page and location on that page that has the Surname we are looking for. Amazing, Wonderful, and saves us hours and even days. Read more on OCR

Unfortunately, this system does err at times, especially if the text being scanned is unclear, distorted, or incomplete. For example:
Utah Digitized Newspapers OCR does not read the surname Renstrom for some reason.
When I search this name I get three records, two of them are about the same article and the third is not a relation, yet I have found several more Renstroms in this same database. Why are they not indexed? Probably for the reasons listed above and possibly that the text is often too small to make out this particular letter combination correctly.
This article lists the name Renstrom several times clearly and was found in this database, yet I did not locate this article under Renstrom. I do not know what this name is indexed as, if I did I could type that in and hopefully find more records, but it is likely that it is indexed differently each time.

In the Northern New York Historical Newspaper Collection I am finding it difficult to find a particular family that I know was in the area at the time and should have news articles about them. Here is an example of a mis-indexed name from this database.
Click on this image to see a larger view. This has a wonderful example of incomplete letters confusing the OCR. Notice the top search result on the left and the enlarged image on the right. You will see on the right that the first name mentioned here in the newspaper image is Mrs. John D. Robillard. On the left you will see the OCR indexed this name as JuiiU D. Uobiliarti. Your eyes can fill in the blanks of the incomplete letters to a name that makes sense, yet the computer cannot or did not in this case. I searched the name "Dr. James Garvin" whose name you will see listed next in this news article. Fortunately, the Robillards are a relation and I was able to obtain this record on them despite the index error. I would never guess Uobiliarti as an alternate spelling to search.
Another example is in the next search result. This is an obituary for John Garvin, but I couldn't find it under John. You will notice in the image how a portion of the O is missing in the name John. Look at the word Obituary at the top. It has bled so much that it is difficult to make out. As humans using logic and context clues we are able to decipher it just fine, but not the computer. Luckily I was able to locate this obituary, once again through Dr. James Garvin. This article gave me the connection between these two that I was hoping for and told me of another sister that I did not know about.

Just because a name is not in the index does not mean the information is not there. Use relatives, dates and locations where you think you may find them. It will take a little more digging on your part, but the fruits of your labors will be well worth it.

Double Descended

Here is a photo of the Herman August Thorup Family



Names from Left to Right and Back to Front:
Back: Christine Veronica Thorup (Rasmussen), Hyrum Emanuel Thorup, Nettie Neilsine Nielsen (Thorup), Joseph Thorup, Clara Romney (Thorup), John Theobald Charles Thorup, Johanna Caroline Ostermann (Thorup), Jensine Jensen (Thorup)
Front: Niels Rasmussen, Lara Augusta Marie Thorup (Rasmussen), Herman August Thorup, Mary or Marie Christine Christensen (Thorup), Herman Frederick Ferdinand Thorup, Anne Christine Anderson (Thorup)

This photo is a special one for my family because we are the descendants of two of Herman August Thorup's Children (Christine Veronica and Herman F. F.). In this family photo we see our ancestry come together.

This summer my sister married into my husband's side of the family and we just had our first huge group family photo with both of us in it. I am going to hold onto this photo for our posterity who will once again be double descendants and double related.

Anyone Speak Danish?

My mother has an original passenger contract for our ancestor Herman F. F. Thorup. The bulk of the text is written twice, once in English so that makes it a lot easier. I did make out that it is for passenger: Herman Thorup age: 53 whose occupation is: Missionary. He is traveling from somewhere to Boston Massachusetts and they guarantee to get him there.



In the earlier years of mass immigration, there were several complaints by passengers of being "swindled" by their emigration agents. As a result, various laws were passed requiring agents to be certified by the government and for every passenger to have a signed and stamped passenger contract. They were to carry this with them for the entire journey to protect their rights and ensure they arrived at their desired destination under the terms originally agreed to.



Herman F. F. (Right) with mission companion in Denmark