Sentimental Sunday - Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there! This is a picture of my Dad doing one of the things he loved best. He is the one sitting in the middle of the canoe. The picture was taken in the early 1950s and labeled with: Here we are half way across West Bay, passing by an island.  Left to Right: Bert Bruns, Tim Creeden, and Dick Bruns. I think he was referring to West Bay, Michigan.

Sibling Saturday - Carl and Robert Creeden

This photo was taken in August 1911 when my grandfather Robert Creeden was six months old and his brother Carl Edward Creeden was three. Sadly, Carl died from meningitis in 1912 when he was only four years old. Thanks to Marj B. for sending me the photo!

Follow Friday - Week of June 14, 2013

Here are a few of my favorite finds for the past week:

• I found one of my mystery photos in This Is Our Life, a family history of the Willke, Kleinhenz, and related families from Mercer County, Ohio.
• The Spiraling Chains has some good tips for finding Catholic clergy records on Google Books. 
• If you're looking for a way to organize your genealogy data, check out Sarah's system on Geneartistry.
• Wendy has a nice photo of her Madsen family on Shaking Leaves.
• Denise writes about her ancestor's close call in the American Revolution on Meandering Past.
• Watch a pair of Salt Lake City falcons raise their chick. Warning, it's addictive!

Wedding Wednesday - A Mystery Solved

Dr. Edgar J. Willke and Alfrida Kleinhenz

I posted a little over a year ago about a wedding photo I had that was not labeled. It was in my grandfather's collection and I thought it might be someone related to his second wife, Hilda Kleinhenz. I recently discovered two books online about Hilda's sister Alfrida and her family. The This is Our Life book has the same photo in it!

The wedding photo is of Dr. Edgar J. Willke and Alfrida Kleinhenz. They were married on July 21, 1931 at the Holy Rosary Catholic Church in St. Mary's, Ohio. Hilda was the maid of honor. The photo in This is Our Life is in much better condition than my copy and there is a second lovely photo of Alrida in her wedding dress on page 23 of the book. The books are beautifully done with many photos and interesting histories.Thanks so much to Andy N. for putting the books online!

Church Record Sunday - Ohio Quaker Records

Up until yesterday, every church record I've found on my Creeden family has been Roman Catholic. I was trying to find an obituary for John Creedan when he popped up in in an Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy by William Hinshaw. The entry below is from Volume 5, Ohio Monthly Meetings in the section for the Dover meetings held in Clinton County, Ohio. The Dover meetings were started in 1824.

According to the list of abbreviations in the volume, "recrq" is "received by request" and "dis" is "disowned" or "disowned, for". In this case, it looks like John and his family were disowned for disunity. Of course, I wondered what that meant!

The encyclopedia is an extraction of the meeting minutes, so if any details were recorded, they would be in the original records. Disunity could be as simple as speaking out strongly against the consensus of the members, although there would have to be a number of occurrences for this to cause a member to be disowned. A possibility is that John supported a cause or group that was contrary to the consensus of the members. The Quaker Corner on Rootsweb is the repository for the Quaker Roots mailing list where I found some discussions on disunity.

The other interesting thing in the minutes is the William Creeden that was received on the same day as John. I've been looking for some evidence that John's brother Patrick William went by William since their father was a Patrick. While I can't tell for sure that this William is John's brother, it looks like a good possibility. The combination of the names John, Minerva, and Hiram is unusual enough to make me pretty sure that this is the same family.

This was the only entry I found for the Creedans in the Quaker records. John is buried in St. Mary's Cemetery in Ft. Recovery, Mercer County, Ohio. This is a Catholic cemetery, so it looks like he returned to his original religion at some point.