Quest for Great-Grandparents: Storytime Edition - The First Chapter

Question

For this great-grandparent challenge, in honour of the pleasures of having a story read to you (or reading a story), I have chosen children's authors. All of these people are connected to the main tree, but none of them have a full set of great-grandparents listed on WikiTree. In order for us to add a list to the Relationship Finder Quick Links page, each person on it needs to have at least one line going back as far as their great-grandparents (and preferably all eight lines).

The task is to seek out, source, and add profiles for as many missing great-grandparents as you can find. As you take on a person, and add a new great-grandparent, please post a message here, so we can keep track of how we're doing.

Name	Great-grandparents
Hans Christian Andersen (Denmark)	6
Charlotte Barton (England)	2
Paul Biegel (Netherlands)*	8!
Enid Blyton (England)	8!
Dick Bruna (Netherlands)*	8!
Roald Dahl (Wales)	6
Jacob Grimm (Germany)	8!
Selma Lagerlöf (Sweden)	8!
C. S. Lewis (Ireland)	6
George MacDonald (Scotland)	2
A. A. Milne (England)	8!
Eleanor Porter (USA)	8!
Mordecai Richler (Canada)	4
Doctor Seuss (USA)	8!

* Although these authors were born in the Netherlands, their missing great-grandparents were probably from Germany.  

Comments

If you run across an unsourced profile which is already on WikiTree and add one or more sources to it, you can count that source towards the Sourcerers Challenge, if you're taking part in that. If you can add sources, photos, or biographies, add siblings, children, aunts, uncles, etc., or improve the profiles of these people or their family members in other ways, so much the better!

P.S. I'm not a WikiTree Leader, and have no authority to assign points, credit, or anything like that. My intent with these challenges is for them to be a fun little break from whatever you're doing regularly. (Well, that, and preparing lists of different kinds of notables for the Relationship Finder Quick Links page.) There's no time limit, there are no prizes, and if you have fun finding and adding relatives, then you win. (And WikiTree wins in any case, because the more connected profiles we have, the better the tree is for everybody.)

P.P.S. If this challenge intrigues you, and you think you might like to try finding great-grandparents for other notable people so they can be added to the Relationship Finder Quick Links page, you can find other threads in this series on the How to increase a country's presence on WikiTree page.

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Thank you to whoever added the great-grandparents for A. A. Milne and Eleanor Porter! That leaves this challenge in sixth place in terms of percent complete, at 63.4%, and moves it up to fifth place in terms of great-grandparents still to find, at 41.

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I just noticed that, although Roald Dahl was born in Wales, his missing great-grandparents were probably Norwegian.

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Thanks to Danny and Maria, this challenge in sixth place in terms of percent complete, at 79.5%, and in fifth place in terms of great-grandparents still to find, at 23. (Danny's work also pushed the Zoektocht naar overgrootouders: kinderauteurs editie challenge into first place, both in terms of percent complete at 97.7%, and in terms of great-grandparents still to find, at 2.)

Answer 1

Dr. Seuss seems to have all 8 great grandparents.

Comments

Almost, but not quite. I don't count people with Unknown last names, so he has one great-grandmother still to identify the Last Name At Birth for. But still, that's an improvement from when I first compiled this list a couple of weeks ago.

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Now Dr. Seuss has the full set of great-grandparents. That leaves this challenge in sixth place in terms of percent complete at 80.4%, and fifth in terms of great-grandparents still to find, at 22.

Answer 2

I am working on Enid Blyton(I was a Noddy fan as a small child).

Walter Harrison was born 1846, and his parents were John Harrison (born 1821) and Elizabeth (?) Harrison born 1825.  Still working on her maiden name, and more sources.

Comments

I was a huge Noddy fan myself. I also seem to recall reading at least some of her other books, but I can't remember which ones now.

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I got both gg parents.  I think I can take it back anther generation, at least the fathers.

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Thank you, Janet. This challenge did start with an advantage, since most of the authors had at least some great-grandparents, but it is now in sixth place, both in terms of percent complete, at 58.9%, and in terms of great-grandparents still to find, at 46.

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I have replaced two of Enid Blyton's GGParents.  The Elizabeth Milner who married Walter Harrison was born 1845 in Misterton, Notts., the daughter of Benjamin Milner and Ann (Jackson) Milner.

(NOT the 1849 daughter of Joseph Milner and Mary (Packard) Milner born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire)

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Thank you for fixing that, Janet. While I do love to see the numbers go up, I don't want to see that at the expense of accuracy.

Answer 3

Now working on A.A. Miilne.

I have the names for the missing GGParents(Ralph Bloor or Blore and Hannah Brindley or Brundley) and the date of their marriage (Aug 14 1815) in Prestbury and/or Saltersford Cum Kettleshulme, Cheshire.  Buthave not yet found birth or death dates.  If I can not find anything conclusive I will just estimate the birth dates as 1795.

 

Comments

A.A. Milne now has all 8 GGparents, though the birth dates and places are just guesses.

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Thank you, Janet. That leaves this challenge in sixth place in terms of percent complete, at 65.2%, and fifth place in terms of great-grandparents still to find, at 39.

Answer 4

I am working on Charlotte (Waring) Barton, who doesn't even have parents on Wikitree.  I have hints leading  to one set of GGParents, but need to find reliable sources.

Comments

That's so cool! Here I was afraid that nobody would take her, because she was born before the UK started keeping BMD records.

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I have added one set of great grandparents.  I have relied more than I like on on-line  trees (My Heritage and Curious Fox), but I have found plausibe sources that support them.

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Thank you, Janet! That leaves this challenge in fifth place both in terms of percent complete, at 67%, and in terms of great-grandparents still to find, at 37.

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I have added her great great grandparents, Sampson Waring and Anne Meyern.  I have also connected Anne to her third husband, John Twisleton, who was already on Wikitree, providing another connection to the "big tree".

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I have now connected her to her 3rd g-grandfather Richard Waring (Waring-316) who was already on Wikitree.

This makes her 5th cousin of the naturalist Charles Darwin (Darwin-15).

Answer 5

The ancestry of the Brothers GRIMM is completed. For now I just filled in the basics. If I find time later I can improof the biographies a bit.

Comments

Thank you, Danny! 

Answer 6

I found the missing German ancestors of Paul Biegel and Dick Bruna.

They also have complete sets of  Great-grandparents now.

Comments

A big THANK YOU from Amsterdam! Our Dutch challenge of writers is complete with your new profiles. Can you help us find the great-grandparents of the politician Abraham Kuijper? His grandmother was from Neukirchen, Kassel, Hessen, born abt. 1764.

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Hello to Amsterdam, I looked it up, but it seems that it would take some more time to evaluate this problem.

What I can tell so far is that we might have to change the LNAB for https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Baurin-2. It is a Problem of Grammar. The real surname would be BAUER. Some of the linked documents have "Bäurin", what would be the old femal form of the Name "Bauer". One document has it as "Bouwer". That is how you might spell it if you are not German and only hear the Name "Bauer".

If you follow the documents, she was born ca. 1764 in Neukirchen, Hessen-Kassel. That would be Neukirchen (Knüll) near Ziegenhain nowadays. Unfortunately the birthrecords from 1761-1767 of this parish are missing. But there lived a family BAUER there at the time. Father: Johann Bauer, white tanner (master), and his wife Anna Barbara, born Kerst. They batized a daughter, Anna Catharina, on May 13. 1758 in Neukirchen.

Not sure if it helps, but may be a first hint.

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Hi Danny, great research. I read the Bouwer name and recognise the surname of my Dutch friend. This means "builder", where Bauer translates to farmer, but I can see that Dutch person would hear Bauer and write the name as Bouwer. We will have to deal with missing records, but that there was a family Bauer in the area points in the right direction.

I will start by editing the LNAB.

Answer 7

Added one for Selma Lagerlöf.

Edit: and another one :)

Edit again: and one more. I think it's complete?

Comments

Thank you very much for that, Maria! Are you also willing to work on Hymn Writers, Nobel Laureates, or Archivists?

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Well, I think this one will take out Selma Lagerlöf also in the Nobel Laureate challenge :)

I might look at the Swedish archivist later, corrected some errors on the profile.

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Ah. So it does! Thank you for that!