A Father's Day Present for Someone Else's Dad

A couple of months ago, my son's kindergarten teacher asked me if I could do some work on his family tree. (Famous last words, "Sure!") Then he said that he would like to give my work to his dad on Father's Day. Since I don't do genealogy reports for clients, I didn't have any format with which to present my research to him. Luckily, at SCGS Jamboree last weekend, I came across this beautiful family tree chart. It is 22" x 28" and came with instructions to print and affix the ancestors' names on labels on the tree. It was a lot of work cutting the sticky printer paper just right and getting the labels straight on the tree, but when it was done I was pretty pleased with the final result.

James Family Tree

I concentrated on his paternal ancestors since his mother is from Brazil and I wouldn't even know where to begin with her genealogy. Luckily, his father is very "American" and most of his ancestors trace back to Colonial New England, so there were plenty of records from which to build his family tree. I was also very fortunate that he had some notable ancestors like John Alden and Priscilla Mullins. I purchased the story of his ninth great grandparents, "The Courtship of Miles Standish" by Longfellow and glued his descendancy from John and Priscilla on the inside of the cover. 
                                                                                        

 

Luckily, the Mayflower Society booth at SCGS Jamboree had a very nice printed copy of "The Mayflower Compact". Since, at least, four of my son's teacher's direct ancestors signed the compact and he is descended from, at least, eight Mayflower passengers, it was also a fitting gift. 

Some of his ancestral surnames are James, Gries, Downey, Harris, Bell, Coop, Myers, VanCleave and Swearingen. I found some interesting tidbits like that he shares the famous Vanderbilt family's immigrant ancestor, Jan Aertsen van der Bilt, and his VanCleave ancestors were with my Proctor ancestors fighting in the Kentucky wilderness with Daniel Boone.

Although I had a lot of fun working on this tree, especially when I discovered that he and I are ninth cousins twice removed through our shared Mayflower ancestors, John Howland and Elizabeth Tilly, I do have to admit, I sure was relieved when this project was finished!

Axel Herstad "discovered" by Mrs. Frederick W Vanderbilt, 1894

My paternal great grandmother Fredrikka Herstad had an older brother named Axel Herstad who was born on 19 May 1868 in Hommelvik, Trondheim, Norway.

He was an artist.

A rather lengthy article appeared on November 27, 1894 in the New York Herald, the headline of which is above. This article explained that Axel was a sailor on a ship called the "Conqueror" when his artwork was noticed by Mrs. Frederick Vanderbilt (Louise Holmes Anthony Torrance). She decided to sponsor his art education and placed him in the studio of the successful New York artist Robert Reid (misspelled in the headline). The article is a wealth of information on Axel's life and, judging from it, his future sounds very promising. In 1895, he was living in Brooklyn and in 1896 married Helga Ihle there.  It is difficult to determine what happened next since by 1900, he is back living in Trondheim, Norway. Sadly, he is recorded as a steamboat driver in this census. What could have happened to his promising art career? The article mentions that his painting of Christiansand Harbor was then hanging in the Scandinavian Sailors' Home in Brooklyn, New York. I imagine, as his patron, Mrs. Vanderbilt must have also owned some of his artwork. I am hoping that one day I can track down one of his paintings and witness, with my own eyes, his talent that so impressed Mrs.Vanderbilt. How incredible that would be!