Clamor Ludwig Viktor's travel papers!

 Clamor left Germany April 19, 1857 and arrived in New York September 14, 1858.  I can't imagine being on a boat for almost a year and a half.  His wife and children accompanied him.  Gerhart would have been 16 when they left.  Marie Louisa was 11, Johann Frederick 7, Anna Marie Ilsebein was just 2.  I can't even fathom that trip!  Five more children were born in Cleveland, Ohio.  Why Cleveland?  I'm not sure yet, but I have some theories.  I'll attack that in anther post.

Let's skip a few generations for a moment.  Clamor's grandson, Edwin was born in 1893 and died in 1965.  His wife, Esther, lived until 1984.  Edwin and Esther had six children.  When Esther passed away, their daughter, Majorie lost her battle with cancer in 1987.  Margie and George Vasilev had 3 sons.  Their oldest son, Tom, married Joyce. Tom is my first cousin.

A few days ago Joyce called and told men she'd found a box of old pictures.  She started texting me pictures of the pictures.  We could identify SOME of the people in the pictures, but not all.  We started a group text and put a small amount on our Facebook group.  That helped identify more.  Joyce found pictures of Edwin's siblings on their wedding days!  She found a picture of Esther's mother!  There was a post card and some certificates.  More on those later.

She also found this:  

I could read just a few words, so I started using google translate and called my mother (who grew up speaking German at home).  I'll work on a full translation, but it definitely appears to be his travel papers!

Combining our brains and resources is helping me figure out our family so much more!

Nagging for addresses! Family tree!

 I just sent out a mailing giving our cousins the information posted here (tee shirts, hotels, recipes, pictures of your clans).  I mailed 354 letters.  They were dropped off at the post office yesterday.

TODAY my mother gave me an updated address and I found at least 5 addresses on ancestry (someone had posted a very old address list.  Amazingly, I had a few of the addresses.  I searched for the cousin with the city and state, a few seem like they could still be valid).  

I also have been working on a family tree poster.  It appears that Clamor Ludwig Victor Brueggemann had 54 Grandchildren.  I'm cleaning up my ancestry account to be sure because I have quite a few mistakes.  Our clans are named after his grandchildren.  I'm wondering if we don't need to add tribes (and maybe families). . . for example, 

I am the daughter of James, son of Edwin, Clamor's grandson.  Edwin is Ernst August's son.  I could be the Ernst August Tribe, Edwin Clan, James Family.  Edwin was my grandfather.  he has 17 grandchildren and 38 great-grandchildren.  The great-grandchildren have many children (I think 28 so far, but there's a new one being added this month!), and the first great-great-great grandchild was born last year.  

Clamor had 9 children, who all had children.  When he passed away, he had almost 100 descendants.  That was in 1909.  More than 100 years later, I have no idea how many descendants he has.  Five live in my home!  (Me, obviously, and our 4 teenagers).

What does this have to do with addresses?

I can not invite our cousins to the reunions if I don't have addresses.  Please, if you're reading this and you, or one of your relatives, does not receive a piece of paper from me every year, email me!  brueggemanreunion@gmail.com.  I have over 350 addresses, but I'm quite sure that's just a drop in the bucket.  Only two clans have provided me with complete information!  That information changes, too.  About 10% of my mailing comes back to me each year.  I update the contacts and reach out.  I try to figure out our family tree and find new addresses.  I also nag.

It may not seem important to you.  However, some of our cousins have started coming to the reunions because they're getting invitations.  We lost track of people.  In 100 years, that happens.  I'm trying to come up with a system that is sustainable for the next 100 years.  Wouldn't that be wonderful?  a 200th annual reunion.

Cousins, PLEASE send me your addresses.  Please update the family!