52 Ancestors Week 32: Sister

Question

Time for the next 52 Ancestors challenge!

Please share with us a profile of an ancestor or relative who matches this week's theme:

Sister

From Amy Johnson Crow:

This week, it's the sisters' turn. Like we did last week with "Brother," feel free to consider other ways of interpreting "sister."

Share below!

Participants who share every week can earn badges. If this is your first time participating and you don't have the participation badge, or if you pass a milestone (13 in 13, 26 in 26, 52 in 52) let us know here. Click here for more about the challenge. 

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Comments

The sister of my 3x great grandmother Susannah Murdoch (Murdoch-959)  was Elizabeth Murdoch (Murdoch-946).  Elizabeth while not a direct ancestor married my 4x great grandfather on a different line, and was the mother of all of his legitimate children.   If makes sorting out DNA matches fun.

Answer 1

My grandmother Nellie Marvin, second from the left, is in birth order with her five sisters. Grandma Nellie lived with us and made no attempt for friends except her sisters, so I spent a great deal of my life knowing all of them. They all dearly loved animals, and three of them never had children, so their pets were their children. Today, Lizzie, Nora and Gracie are rescue cats that live with me. Phoebe was my beautiful calico, who is in kitty heaven, and Ruth's cat, Rosie, lived with us to be 22. 

Comments

What an absolutely fabulous photo!  Very beautiful ladies and I just love the dresses, the pose - everything about this pic!

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I remember this photo .. and the "rebel" 2nd from the right! 

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Melanie, your memory is absolutely better than mine. I think I put this on a question of the week, but yes—we talked about her and rescuing pets, and you advised me to put her on another question, and she got several votes. Her daughter came to stay with me for a month care after a surgery, and I had not told her about my cat that had the same name as her mother. I was worried that it might make her sad, but she fell in love with Phoebe, and she said she called her mother, Momma, and she was glad we named our calico Phoebe.

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Thank you SJ, these women were such a big part of my life.

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I am so happy for you that you have such wonderful photographic memories of your family.

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Thank you Melanie!!

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I love this photo.  It is so special.  Thanks for sharing it.

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Thank you Caryl.

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Alexis, I love your picture. Their outfits are adorable, and their hats are to kill for. And they are all skinny.

Gorgeous picture. Thank you for sharing.

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Cheryl, in 1975–I was visiting Aunt Nora. She said “Are you pregnant? No one in our family is big is you unless they were pregnant.” My my husband laughed the whole 30 miles home. He was the one I wanted to kill, not her. I loved them all, especially Nora.

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Thank you again Caryl.

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Alexis, was she kidding or just rude?  lol

I would have killed my husband. 

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I honestly think that she thought I might be pregnant. I was 30 and had my only two children. I was 5’5” and 140 lbs, and certainly bigger than any of them. Nora was 5’1” and about 95 lbs most of her life. I got thin genetics from them, but I married into a family that was all about food and cooking.

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Love this photo!! My grandmother, Elizabeth on the far left. She was the oldest of all of them, including the boys. Total of twelve children. Speaking of cats, my grandmother, had five children but many cats.  I would sneak home kittens, most of them were wild, I was usually allowed to keep and tame down the kittens.  Some times she would get the mama cats and put them and the kittens in dresser drawers, to keep them safe. At one point, at her home in Riverside, California, she had about 30-40 cats running around and a neighbor, (we think} called the Humane Society and they collected a lot of them and took them away.  She was much older at this point, and really could not take care of so many cats. A lot of cat ladies in my family!!

Answer 2

I don't have any 'standard' sister stories ancestor wise that stand out. For this week, I am going to select my 'sister-in-law' who is as helpful as my brother (who I recognized last week). Sue is much like a sister to me. Recently, I started to work on her maternal family line. I spoke with Sue just two days ago. I discovered and am 99% certain that Sue and my nieces and nephews are Mayflower and Jamestown descendants through Stephen Hopkins! If this is the case, she is likely a descendant of a MCB (but that will be for later). I am having Sue get records (birth, death, marriage) for her mother and maternal grandfather, GGF and his wife, whose father was Sewell Hopkins, Jr. These are the bona fide links needed. So, while Webster would define a woman with parents in common, I have defined sister this week and the commonality I share with my 'sister-in-law' through shared history, and adding her family to our shared genealogical tree!

Answer 3

My 2nd great-uncle is James W Taylor (1869).  His sister Jennie Ruby Klinepeter is my 2nd great grandmother.  Luckily, I was corresponding with a 3rd or 4th cousin last year and he sent me some scans of photos he has.  And here they are together:

Comments

SJ, your 2nd great grandmother is a really beautiful women, and they did not wear all the makeup many of us wear today. She and her brother do look like siblings. I am glad you were able to get this wonderful photo from cousins and share it with us.

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What a handsome couple!  Love this photo SJ.  Thanks for sharing.

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SJ, I love old photos. There is so much to take in when you are looking at them. Beside your beautiful 2nd great grandmother, her dress is amazing. The men's clothes of the day are cool, but when I see the women's clothes, they amaze me with all their intricacies.

Thank you for sharing.

Answer 4

The youngest sister of my 4x great grandmother is the one who links me to my relatives in the neighbor town of my ancestor's town, as she married there. As the neighbor town is bigger, there are actually more relatives in my tree from there than from my ancestor town.

Answer 5

No surprise about this week's topic.

This week I have chosen Annie Poynter and her sister Eliza. Annie was born in 1869, married Richard Wright in 1891, and they had three children. But sadly Annie died in 1896 at the age of only 27. Annie's sister Eliza married Richard Wright in 1898 and they had a daughter together as well as raising Annie's children.
I was suprised when I first discovered this story but I have come across the same scenario a few times since although I am sure individual circumstances were different in each case.

Comments

There's actually Biblical precedent for this, as it apparently was considered proper in New Testament times to take care of your brother's wife if he died, including marrying her if feasible.

Answer 6

My grandma's middle name was Julia in honor of her father's mother.  Her first name was chosen to honor her mother's side of the family: since her mom wanted to honor both her mother, Mary, and her younger sister, Ann, she decided to honor them both-my grandma's first name ended up being Maryann.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wintermute-116

Answer 7

I have had a difficult time deciding which "sister" to highlight this week, but finally decided on one that was somewhat of a puzzle early on.  For decades we "knew" that my great-great-grandfather's brother had married my great-great-grandmother's sister.  (The gr-gr-gf was Samuel Gordon .. the gr-gr-gm was Emily Elizabeth McCrea.  The gr-gr-granduncle was Wallace Gordon.  The gr-gr-grandaunt was Catherine Eleanor McCrea.) 

Only .. he didn't.

Gr-gr-grandmother's sister (remember, this was Catherine Eleanor) married someone totally unrelated (James Christie Peattie), something I finally, fully, sorted out late last year/earlier this year.

BUT, what I did discover more recently was that the "name-alike" gr-gr-grandfather's brother had married was, in fact, the sister of my gr-gr-grandfather's father-in-law.  (So, remember that the gr-gr-gf was Samuel, so his father-in-law would be my gr-gr-GR-grandfather (James McCrea ..  HIS sister was Catherine McCrea)).  We had originally thought that the parents on the death registration for Catherine Gordon née McCrea were a mishmash of her sister's name (younger sister, Margaret Hamilton McCrea), but, again, I proved that was incorrect when I discovered that Margaret Hamilton McCrea had died aged only 11 weeks. (It was, however, a mishmash of her mother's name and her father's name.)  Then came the discovery that James hadn't emigrated to Australia from Scotland, but from Ireland; and he hadn't emigrated alone as we'd long believed (very little information was passed down as the gr-gr-gm and her sister were double orphans before the elder was 10), but his mother, brothers and two sisters had emigrated later the same year (but arriving early the next year) on a different ship.  The two sisters were Bounty immigrants, as was the gr-gr-gr-grandfather.  Some thirty years later and the gr-gr-gr-gf had been dead for 13 years and his younger daughter (Emily) marries a Scotsman (in September).  Then, a couple of months later in the same year (November) his younger sister married his daughter's new brother-in-law. 

So, it wasn't yet another case of two brothers marrying two sisters (which seemed to happen a LOT in a couple of my branches!), but a case of two brothers marrying aunt and niece!

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(I hope you, dear reader, are not as confused as I still sometimes feel when sorting through this lot.)

Comments

Great story. I have two brothers who married an aunt and niece, only the girls were within a couple of years in age and were raised together as sisters. The photos is of their daughters https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Grady-651

I only knew one of these daughters , my great aunt Gert, but I've met a descendant of one of the others through my family history research. She is my second cousin and 2C1R

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Sadly, Wallace and Catherine had no children .. I believe because she was so much older than he.

Emily and Samuel, though, had quite a few.  (I have yet to add them all.  Still going through my mother's notes for some of them.  My mental todo list for her notes gets longer every day, and includes cousins of cousins. )

I have a few where it was a brother and sister from one family married a sister and brother from another family .. so double-cousins all over the place!

Answer 8

I knew Sister Antonia only in her later years. But I can tell you that she was, until her death, the matriarch of the entire Southern California Shaules family and was loved by them all. She was born in 1910 and grew up in the San Diego area when it was still quite rural and had all the adventures with her siblings that young children had back then. She became a nun in 1928 and celebrated her 75th Jubilee in 2003. After becoming a nun she was always known as Sister Antonia rather than Marie. She lived a full life and loved teaching children. In the 1970s, I have been told, she took a trip to Montana to visit her half-siblings' children who lived on ranches there. She rode a donkey and flew in a small 2-man airplane. She was then in her 60s. She continued to live a full life, working at her convent, until shortly before her death in 2004. She has been missed by all those who knew her.

Answer 9

This week's blog is all about little old Italian ladies and why you need to listen to stories from the oldest generation: https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2019/08/52-ancestors-week-32-sister.html

Answer 10

This is my grandfather's sister. Jane Bruce Urquhart. Jane passed away at sixteen years of age after catching Double Pneumonia after taking a pig seven miles to market.

Comments

What a sad story. Thank you for sharing, David.

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Yes, Thank you Cheryl.

I have seen her d. cert. which says Double Pneumonia and I remember my grandfather saying what had happened.

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She looks so sad in the picture, David. So hard for the family to lose a child that young. I am sorry.

Answer 11

This week I choose my great grandmother  Maggie Ungewitter Showalter.  She was widowed at the young age of 40 in Sonoma county, California.  After my great grandfather died, she moved to Seattle to be near her sister Carrie.  They had a close bond. (Carrie Ungewitter Hubbard on left, Maggie Ungewitter Showalter on right)

Comments

Thank you Caryl for sharing this dear photo of your great grandmother and her sister—moving to be near each other shows the love between them.

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Caryl, thank you for sharing this picture and the story. It is so nice for your grandmother to be able to move next to her sister.

Answer 12

My sisters is my mother's sisters one is alive and the other is dead. The one that is alive is the baby of the family and sisters. The one that is dead is older than my mother. The one that is dead name is Ellen Deborah (Leonard) Sapp and her profile is https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Leonard-5592 and the other one is Mary Nelle Smith (Leonard) Shell and her profile is https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Leonard-9129.My mom's sister that is alive has been married two times and both of them are dead. Her first one she married was gay and when he died he had developed HIV and died from it.

 My dad didn't have any sisters only 2 brothers that is why I did my mom's sisters.

Answer 13

I have  one sister.  My mom had two sisters,one of whom died before she was born.  My maternal  grandmother had no sisters, of whom we know about.

My dad had 5 sisters. His mother had three sisters

Answer 14

As I have no sisters, I thought I would share about my Nana’s sister Rena Johnston. Rena was born in 1884 and Sarah (my Nana) was born 15 months later in 1885. They were two of of a brood of 12 who grew up on a ranch near Reigo in township 1 in Placer County, California. Rena was a tiny thing. The children would climb the windmill to see who could see the postman first. They thought he was amazing because he rode a bicycle. One fateful day, Rena fell from the tower! The children loaded her into a wheelbarrow and took her back to the house. Someone fetched the local horse doctor, and he put Rena to bed and tied a flat iron to her ankle and hung it over the footboard to put traction on her broken hip. 

There was an english gentleman who lived nearby who visited every so often to read to the children. When he saw Rena in the bed with the flat iron, he was shocked and rode immediately into Sacramento and brought back and paid for a real doctor. That doctor cut that flatiron off Rena’s ankle and did his best to realign her leg and hip. She eventually recovered but that leg was shorter and she had a pronounced limp for life. 

As a small child (her great niece) I was always amazed by Great Aunt Rena! She wore long dresses to hide her leg and foot.  I would sneak peeks at her foot because as she aged her foot turned out more and more and by the time I was around to k now her it was almost starting to head backwards!

Aunt Rena and Uncle Charlie had a small ranch on Elverta Road. She had a hand pump in the kitchen sink, and an outhouse. But! Aunt Rena had a potty chair in her room so she didn’t have to go to the outhouse! 

I could go on forever….. :) Here are Sarah and Rena as young women from Sarah’s photo book. week 2

Comments

Lyn, what an awful story. We should be grateful for the doctors we have today. And how nice that the gentleman was there to see her leg. She may have lost her leg.

They are both beautiful women. And you peeking under her dress. That made me laugh.

Thank you for sharing the picture and the story.

Answer 15

This is my first week participating in this challenge. I'm still in my first week on this site, even.

For this week's sister question, I'll highlight my dad's sister, Judy (Carter) Butler Staub, who was the first person who got me interested in genealogy. Today, her work lives on.

Comments

In case you like this challenge you can still catch up with the other weeks from the beginning of the year Here are the early challenges of the year (at least up to week 20), if you post an answer here, you will get a badge that identifies you as participant in this challenge.

Ok, after this specific 52 ancestor's welcome, have fun with WikiTree in general. Don't hesitate to ask in G2G if you have any questions. 

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Welcome to WikiTree and to this challenge. It's nice to meet you.

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Hi Jerrod. Welcome to WikiTree and the 52 week challenge.

Answer 16

Hi everyone, this is my first time on 52 Ancestors. I would like to post about Eileen Maud Cameron. She was one of my Grandfather's four sisters. Eileen never married and had no children. She was a very inspiring woman who worked in France during WW2. She worked for Political lntelligence and Special Operations for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I remember her well because my younger sister and I chose to sit very close to her as young children, much to her annoyance. She is the young girl with the bow in her hair alongside 4 of her siblings.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cameron-9023

Comments

Thank you for this story about Eileen Maud Cameron. And welcome to WikiTree; it's nice to meet you.

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You are very welcome and Thankyou for reading it.

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Thank you for sharing your story abou Eileen Maud. Very interesting. And welcome to 52 Ancestors. I know you are going to enjoy it.

Answer 17

My great-great grandmother Wilhelmine (Rosenau) Koerth[[https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Rosenau-41]] emigrated to the U. S. from Aschenforth, Prussia, in December 1857.  Another passenger was her sister, Ernestine (Rosenau) Degner [[https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Rosenau-67]] They gave "Buffulo" New York as their destination but this was only the first stop on a journey to Wisconsin. After a series of misadventures, including an address lost in New York harbor and a harrowing journey by wagon, they ended up in Manitowoc County.

It was a descendant of Ernestine Rosenau Degner who led me to the Salt Lake films containing the church records of Aschenforth and Jankendorf.

Answer 18

I have a brothers-of-one-family-marrying-sisters-of-another situation in my tree, as many of us do. In fact I'd wondered why I'd come across only one of these situations in my research. It was just a matter of time.

Sisters Nancy Ann and Aquilla James married brothers Thomas and John Howeth. John and Aquilla are my ggg-grandparents, through their daughter Martha Howeth who married Samuel G. Slape. 

Thomas and Nancy Howeth (Martha's aunt and uncle) had a larger family that John and Aquilla, with far more descendants who've tested their DNA. I actually have more matches who descend from Martha's double-cousins than from her own siblings. And thank heavens for that, as it was DNA that helped me discover this part of my tree.

Nancy and Aquilla had another sister, Betsey, who married Thomas Bolton. Martha's husband, Samuel Slape, is somehow related to Thomas Bolton (I can see this through DNA matches). I haven't been able to figure it out. It's possible that Sam Slape's uncle married his wife's, Martha Howeth's, aunt - something along those lines.

Comments

Something like, I'm my own grandpaw!

Answer 19

Just to be contrary, I am choosing the profile of my great-great uncle, George Faulkner. Why does he count for a topic called 'sisters'? All of his eight children were daughters, born between 1871 and 1886. There would have been a lot of sisterhood going on in that household! My father often commented that George was famous for providing the surrounding farmers with wives.

Comments

I bet those farmers were truly thankful for Uncle George! :)

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I am also grateful, because it has made tracing the families down through the generations very interesting.  So many of our nearby neighbours when I was growing up turned out to be third or fourth cousins!

Answer 20

I was taking my grandmother on a trip to my cousins, it was a long car ride, probably about 1990.  She was telling me some stories on the way, she rarely ran out of things to say.  Usually things going on with the family and whatnot.  So she started talking about an aunt or something, I kind of missed the beginning of her story.  Anyway, this lady (Aunt Turah) took a train ride out to Colorado to meet her sister, whom she hadn't seen in something like 50 years.  She saw an older woman at a train stop, but it wasn't where they were supposed to meet so Turah kept walking, but this woman was looking her over and eventually introduced herself.  It turned out it was her sister Phebe! 

So far the story went okay, then Grandma said that Turah went to her sister's house where Phebe served potato chips with the meal.  Turah was a very proper lady and didn't believe in eating with her hands, but she hadn't seen potato chips before and didn't know how to eat them.  She tried a fork and knife, but that didn't work well. The others were eating the chips with their hands, so eventually she had to as well.

At this point I had to ask "Grandma, what decade is this story?"  And she replied, "Oh, I suppose the 1920's."  (And Turah and Phebe were actually her great-aunts). That was how my Grandmother was, she would just tell random stories from any point in time.

Comments

Rob, It was good that you had your chat with grandma, but funny about the potato chips.