Meet our Members: Marta Johnson

+25 votes
961 views

Hi everyone!

500px-Meet_our_Members_Photos-29.jpgIt's time to get to know another one of our wonderful WikiTreers. This week's member is Marta Johnson.

Marta became a Wiki Genealogist in April of 2016.  She's active in our Germany and Sweden projects.

What are some of the surnames you are researching? 

A quarter of my tree is centered in Sweden and my crofter ancestors weren't posh enough to have surnames, only patronyms which changed every generation. My great-grandmother and her siblings adopted the name Holmgren after they emigrated from Sweden to the United States. That surname always catches my eye, but it's usually unrelated. For my own family, I've been looking at Agard, Blank / Blanck, Boaz, Compton, Ehresmann/Erismann, Friedgen, Higbie/Higby, Humble, Löber, Lorenz, Lüttich, Naylor, Müller, Plathner, Reisner, Riotte, Robinson, Rock, Roschy/Roschi, Scheig/Scheich, Watson.

What are some of the locations you are researching? 

Within the United States, I'm mostly focused on the New York City area (Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island); Middlesex County, New Jersey; Braddock, Pennsylvania; Youngstown, Ohio; Caldwell Parish, Louisiana; and Smith County, Texas. We have a connection to Nova Scotia, likely through a Loyalist ancestor who fought on the losing side of the American Revolution and fled to Canada. My mother's Rock line takes me to white European colonizers in Barbados, specifically in St. Lucy Parish on the northern-most tip of the island. In Sweden, I've been most deep in Kinds and Vedens härads in Västra Götaland (southwest Sweden) -- particularly the parishes of Vänga and Örsås. 

My spouse is German and a few of my lines are too. These take me into Bebra, Halle, Köthen, Leipzig, Sankt Goar, Sankt Wendel, Waldfischbach-Burgalben (Pfalz), Winterbach (Pfalz), villages around Schwerin in Mecklenburg, and some German areas within Silesia and Pomerania.

When and how did you get interested in genealogy and family history? 

Family history has been well-integrated in my life since way back -- probably because my extended family is rather close-knit and includes some very sharp and sentimental minds. My grandmother Alice was close with her first cousin Irvie Lee. I remember my father taking us out to meet up with Irvie Lee's kids -- they didn't live far away but far enough out of the city that there were llamas. It was 1987 (I remember because Baby Jessica was trapped in the well on the TV) so I must have been 5 years old. And I met my third cousins. My dad is close to his cousins on his father's side too.

In the early days of the internet, they'd all gather on holidays in a private AOL chat room called "Clausians" -- all descendants of my Swedish great-grandfather who died in 1923. The online gathering continues today as a private Facebook group. Recently in January 2020, the oldest of those cousins died. I took my preschool-age son with me out to Ohio for the memorial service. Afterwards, we were some 30 family members sitting around a giant dinner table, not total strangers to one another, swapping stories and hand-drawing our broad family tree from memory. My son sat with me, his 3rd cousins on either side of us. Family history is living history as much as you allow it to be and can always be cultivated and nurtured. As far as getting into the actual genealogy part, I'm mostly following after my mother who saves everything and has had an affinity for the research.

[Interview continues below.]

WikiTree profile: Marta Johnson
in The Tree House by Eowyn Walker G2G Astronaut (2.4m points)

Who's your favorite ancestor and why? 

Come on, can you pick favorites among your children? I feel similarly about my ancestors. As I learn more and become more familiar with each of them, a kind of intimacy develops. They grow from a name on a census into a person with complexity to their story, products of the circumstances of their time -- just like us! My favorite ancestors are the ones that I have the most information about -- from surviving love letters, newspaper mentions, a diary, or letters home in wartime. I'm sure some of my ancestors were horrid people -- they were slaveholders, profited off wars, got rich off real estate, abused alcohol, and abandoned their families to suicide. I can't say that I'm proud, nevertheless, I do have a kind of tender spot for them. Their story is mine. Without any of those ancestors, where would I be?

Tell us about a brick wall you were able to break down or one you hope to bust through.

My Friedgen line came to me as a dead-end. The name is uncommon enough that I thought I might be able to crack it. My 3x great-grandfather Henry Friedgen was German in origin and lived in New York City. There were a few other Friedgens families in the region at the time -- a painter and a wagonwright. Their connection wasn't clear. There were also a few around Indianapolis -- a shoemaker and a Presbyterian minister

I used WikiTree to make independent profiles for each of them without knowing if or how they were connected. It was a way of keeping everything I knew about each one organized in one place. One had an immigration document listing a birthplace in Bebra, Curhessen. Eventually, I found a social mention in a local newspaper -- the shoemaker's daughter had married and her uncle the minister had officiated. That tied those two. Then there was a newspaper mention of Henry coming to Indiana with the orphan train from New York. It specified that he was the brother of the shoemaker. Cha-ching! 

That led me to the online archive of the Protestant church in Germany where I found images of the parish records in Bebra. They were all listed there, as well as more relatives. Their father Christoph was a ''Federschmücker'', a mostly historical profession for someone who prepares feathers and incorporates them into practical and decorative use. Discovering those records and tracing the line back over the Atlantic was wildly satisfying. And the process illustrates how when you hit that brick wall, sometimes the trick around it is to go sideways. (Of course, it isn't always a successful maneuver, and I'm still trying to jump the pond with my Watson and Naylor lines.)

What are some of your interests outside of genealogy? 

I love baking and often have something in the oven or proofing in a corner. We buy flour and grains in 25 lb (11+ kg) bags and also have a small electric gristmill. It's serious fun, but with four growing kids it's also practical. We eat a lot of bread, cardamom knutar, Dutch baby (a giant oven pancake / pannukakku), and German-style streusel cakes with rhubarb or sour cherries. I also make fresh goat cheese. 

I enjoy listening to opera, audiobooks, and podcasts about history or linguistics. Before pandemic, I was doing recreational roller derby with a wonderful group of women & compatibly non-binary folk, attending theater and opera performances, and climbing in an indoor gym with my spouse -- all totally unrealistic activities right now. Instead I'm taking an online German class and working on my grammar. I watch performances from the Old Vic via Zoom. 

Once every week or two I like to go cross-country skiing -- the mountain pass is only about 50 miles (80 km) away. In addition to the four kids, we also have six chickens and two cats. We are THAT house on the block. It's admittedly a lot. Genealogy research is a meditative escape for me, sifting through chaos, aggregating information, and making order.

How long have you been on WikiTree and what do you spend the most time doing?

I joined WikiTree in 2016. I spend a little more than half of my time working on my own tree or on my spouse's family tree. I generally work backwards to an ancestor, then work forwards building out their descendants. I've poked through several of my own brick walls by going ziggy-zaggy and unknowingly burst others' brick walls by coming at them from above. I also like to spend time in the G2G forum. I try to support other folks and answer questions when I feel competent in the subject or have access to a useful resource. More often I'm learning from others -- particularly on the topics of Germany and Sweden

WikiTree is a broad and diverse community represented by all kinds of people. Many are professionals, specialists, historians, or have a particular familiarity or skill. I am impressed not only by the capacity of our users to, say, decipher chicken scratch handwriting or truffle up information buried in an obscure database, but also their generosity in sharing those skills. Community and collaboration!

[Interview continues below.]

What brought you to WikiTree?

I entered into online family trees via Ancestry.com. My mom started there in 2002. I got my own membership a few years later. Fast-forward a decade. I spent a week in 2015 with my dad's cousin Sarajane in Washington, D.C. She grew up in Youngstown, Ohio and was very close to the Swedish side of our family there. She cares deeply about family and has been a protective & loving steward of their personal stories and treasures. She has a pair of my great-grandfather Claus's wooden shoes, my great-grandmother Hilda's Swedish Bible from 1890, and my great-great-grandmother Klara's Swedish Bible from 1861. 

My goal on that visit was to go through her collection and digitize everything that I could. I scanned the love letters that my great-grandparents had exchanged, postcards, death condolences, graduation programs, newspaper clippings, and hundreds of tintypes and cabinet card portraits. I'd have a question and Sarajane was there to answer, share a memory, and name the people she recognized in an unlabeled photo. There were so many stories to record between complex layers of cousin relationships across several families.

I wanted to consolidate everything into a place where I could share them with our broader family. Ancestry.com had been a useful resource for research, but the site was limited in terms of how information could be presented. There's no freeform space to construct a narrative sprinkled with photos or contextual information. Also, it's behind a paywall which discourages all but the most interested and financially comfortable. I thought I'd have to create something new, then I found WikiTree and fell in love.

What is your favorite thing about WikiTree?

I really appreciate that big blank box and all the possibilities that it allows. Storytelling is so natural for humans and I love that WikiTree provides the space for that form. I can create a narrative biography about a person and footnote it with supporting sources. For clarity or context, it can be sprinkled with links to other profiles and space-pages, an historical map, or an image of the original source document. 

There's also room for research notes to record where I've already looked, list questions, dead ends, or ideas for further research. This helps keep things organized and also makes collaboration easier. I have a place to start when helping other WikiTree users and vice-versa.

If you could improve one thing about WikiTree, what would it be? 

I would try to improve the naming format to be more inclusive of the many other naming conventions that don't fit easily into the existing Anglo-American model. Just with the Swedes as an example, some used patronymics, some used family names, some used the name of their farm as a kind of identifier, and sometimes more than one. In other cultures, one name is it. I live on the unceded ancestral land of the Coast Salish people, specifically the Duwamish. For them, it was traditional to use a single name which might only be given on the cusp of adulthood, such as with our local Siʔa'ɫ. Very far from the LNAB concept. 

Having only one name, a mononym, is not at all uncommon in history or in many regions of the world today. I would love to see WikiTree be able to more easily accommodate for diverse naming customs.

What is an example of how WikiTree has helped you with your genealogy or how you’ve helped genealogy with WikiTree? 

My Friedgen, Müller, Naylor, and Watson lines have all been furthered because of the single universal tree design of WikiTree, and the flexibility of that text box. I've reached out for help in the G2G forum where I've had translation help and been introduced to resources and research methods. There was one particularly generous and computer-savvy user named Magnus who helped me out early on. He even made a personalized YouTube tutorial in which he walked me through his reasoning, his methodology, showed me how to navigate a specific database, then updated the profiles of my ancestors. He went above and beyond to help me. And it gave me the tools to help out others in similar pickles.

Any tips for someone just starting out on WikiTree? 

Go slow! It may be thrilling to charge into the past, lapping up ancestors left and right until you hit Charlemagne. You might be eager to snag a famous ancestor or have a complete 10 generations back. But it will be a hollow pride if you're undiscerning or sloppy with your sources. Give yourself time to evaluate your information and don't be too hasty. If grandma gave you a handwritten tree, or if you're importing a tree from Ancestry or FamilySearch or Geni, use this chance to double-check your facts. If you establish a strong foundation of good citations and good sourcing, it will make our whole tree stronger for everyone.

Marta— It was so interesting and inspiring to get to know you a bit through this interview!  I will look out for you on G2G from now on.

6 Answers

+19 votes
Fantastic to get to know you, Marta! Love your answer to who is your favorite ancestor. I too live on the land of the Coast Salish so nice to meet a neighbor!
by Peggy Watkins G2G6 Pilot (808k points)
Hi Peggy! Nice to see you and thanks for the warm greeting. It is such a lovely region we share. But for the pandemic (wisely) minimizing border-crossing, I'd be up there in a heartbeat, loving all over the city, the islands, and all those wonderful Provincial Parks.
Yes, can't wait until we can travel again! I have many happy memories in Washington including a nice to trip a few years ago to the San Juan Islands, cruising the Salish Sea on the Washington state ferry.
Oh yes, the wonderful ferry network! The Salish Sea is magical -- I saw Dall's porpoises and a minke whale the last time I was on a BC ferry and crossing the strait. It was a couple years back after a week up near Courtenay on Vancouver Island. Also encountered black bears lumbering around the neighborhood. I adore BC and miss visiting. Oh the traveling we'll do when this is over!
+16 votes
Congratulations Marta on being Wonderful WikiTreer of the week.
It's nice to learn a little more about people and see an actual picture of people you've had a lot of contact with on WikiTree, especially in G2G.

A wonderful interview and by the way, one hobby we have in common: I cook almost every day and regularly bake bread, cakes and pies and at Christmas of course mountains of cookies.
by Dieter Lewerenz G2G Astronaut (3.1m points)
Oh Dieter, I felt the same way reading your interview, getting a face and interesting personal and contextual information on someone who seemed otherwise so familiar in the G2G realm. Very nice to get a broader view of you as a person.

Ooo and exciting to hear about our other shared hobby. Do tell more about your baking! I'd love to know more about those breads, cakes, pies... Pies?? Aren't those an uncommon confection in Germany. Do you make them with a Mürbeteig, round or on a Blech?

And cookie mountains? Meine Augen sind groß wie Teller. How lucky to be in your circle of friends and family at Weihnachtszeit! Do you have an especially favorite cookie in your pile?
My favorite cake has a base of shortcrust pastry (Mürbeteig), then a filling of sponge cake (Rührteig) with lots of almonds and topped thickly with apples; our favorite way to eat it is warm with whipped cream.
My favorite Christmas cookies are fig macaroons (Feigenmakronen) and light lard cookies (Schmalzplätzchen). And then I love my mother-in-law's New Year's cakes (Neujahrskuchen-Niejahrskaucken); they are always called by us only in Low German.
+15 votes
It's great to get to know you, Marta!

I love this line: "I thought I'd have to create something new, then I found WikiTree and fell in love."
by Chris Whitten G2G Astronaut (1.5m points)
Chris, it's true! The kind of love you know immediately. This elegant, trim and friendly platform, already well-structured and accessible. This wonderful alternative framework to show and share our interconnected family stories in a way that facilitates collaboration and community-building. It was the exact place that I didn't know I was looking for. It was love. In birthing WikiTree you also spared the world from my ugly graceless creation, likely an unglorified bloggy mess of photos and a rat king of hyperlinks. For this and more, many thanks and so much love!
+9 votes
Congratulations on your wonderful wikitreer of the week, Marta.  It's great to know more about you, and your work on WikiTree.
by Mark Weinheimer G2G Astronaut (1.2m points)
Thanks Mark. I feel honored to follow you and join your ranks. I enjoyed reading about your genealogy journey and was impressed by your commitment to sorting through that massive family archive you inherited. Not an easy task. I wanted to read more about that. What other treasures did you discover?
One treasure I found is a farm account book written in German script, by my 2G grandfather, Nicholas Black.  Dieter Lewerenz was kind enough to transcribe, translate, and format it for display on a freespace page I made for his farm.  It can be seen here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Nicholas_Black_Farm
That page is lovely, unusual, and deserves its own special feature. What could otherwise be seen as a mundane accounting book has been transformed into a real personal window into your g-g-grandfather's life, like a diary. And his inventive spelling layers on even more character. That's wonderful work.
Thank you, Marta, and especially to Dieter, who literally brought his words to life.
+7 votes
Hello, Marta,

We happen to be 11th cousins, sharing Roeloff Lucassen Seubering (1596-1654, Seubering-1) as our tenth great-grandfather. Most of my tree is English, closely followed by German, but have a few from Nederland & Sweden. Feel free to check it out...you might find some more relations there!

Dave
by Dave Shaffer G2G6 (8.6k points)
Hi Dave. Glad to meet you, cousin. We are surely more closely related than 10th cousins. I bet we've got some overlap on one of our branches through the Carolinas or maybe our Ulster Scots, the paper trail just isn't there yet. Yet! Who is the Swede in your tree?

There are several:

Matts Hansson (Hansson-456)
Ingeborg Mansdotter (Mansdotter-486)
Peter (Gunnarsson) Rambo (Gunnarsson-187)
Elisabeth (Unknown) Dalbo (Dalbo-170072)
Margaret (Vasa) Hanson (Vasa-77)
Anders Clementsson (Clementsson-9)
Christina Ollesdotter (Ollesdotter-1)
and
Gunnar Person (Persson-4375)
There were more than I realized!
+5 votes
Loved your story Marta.  I agree that family history is living history and it's our duty to preserve and pass that history on while there are still living members.  

And we're neighbours of a sort, living on the Salish Sea.  I live in Tsawwassen, BC, on the border with Point Roberts.  I used to love to drive and camp in Washington State, pre-COVID.
by Brad Cunningham G2G6 Pilot (186k points)

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