Tag: Pohl

Great-grandmother Mary Pohl

Maria “Mary” Pohl, early 1940s

It happened again. This time Zsuzsanna Jácint contacted me with information about my ancestors. She lives in Hungary and it turns out we are distant cousins. My great-grandmother Mary (Bittner) Pohl (1867-1944) is the younger sister of her great great-grandmother, Julianna (Bittner) Szeidl (~1857-1916).

Zsuzsi even provided an image of the elusive marriage record of Mary to Albert Pohl, for which I’ve searched a long time. She provided Mary’s birth record too. There’s no doubt now about the parents of both Mary and Albert.

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Overlays Make Old Maps New Again

google-earth-00In a past posting I described how I located the homestead of my great-grandparents Albert and Mary Pohl near Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania.  I’ve since found that Google Earth is another tool to further visualize the location.  It is helpful in modernizing old maps to better understand where my ancestors lived.

What I did is add an overlay of an old map to the modern world shown in Google Earth.  This allows you to see precisely where a road, building or property once stood in relation to what’s there now.

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Circuitous Yet Fortuitous

Pohl Homestead
Albert and Mary Pohl Homestead

This is a case of genealogical serendipity.  I set out to determine the precise location of the house where my maternal great-grandparents, Albert and Mary Pohl, lived.  In this picture taken about 1909, the Pohl family posed in front of their house. 1

From something unexpected, I uncovered a trail of bread crumbs that led me to their doorstep.

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Genealogy at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Albert and Mary Pohl
Albert and Mary Pohl, about 1909

Who would have thought the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) could answer questions about family history?  I used NOAA to help solve a mystery about the immigration of my great-grandparents, Albert G. and Maria “Mary” (Pittner) Pohl.

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