Daniel Janson papers part 2

Johannes Janson's family historian and genealogist (Carrie) took the time to scan almost 30 pages of an application prepared in Horrenberg, Germany, in 1853, when Johannes' parents wanted to emigrate to America.  They were Daniel Janson and his wife Maria Anna (Helfinger) Janson and six children.
 A fascinating part of the era when Daniel and Maria Anna Janson were denied permission to leave Horrenberg was that other Jansons did leave that year.
Carrie mentioned information she has from someone named Robert Heimann.   She said "in 1999, he gave me a list of Jansons who emigrated in the 1800s from Horrenberg. Egidius Janson to NJ bef 1873, Joseph b. 1844 to US 1883 (yours), Katharina b. 1831 to US 1852, Valentin to Columbia/USA 1853, Sophie, Theresia, Valentin & Veronika to US 1853".  (NOT a complete list, we know).
But according to him, six Janson individuals left, probably with spouses, that year.  We don't know what generation four of them represented, but one of the Valentins could have been Dan's older brother, born in 1805.  
This calls for more investigatin' ☺, I think!

BTW, it's fun to see how MANY times  you can find "Daniel Janson" in these pages.  (I know, it depends on your idea of "fun"...lol)

Coulda been!

 There's a really cool website called Critical Past where you can "search over 57,000 videos and 7 million images".  It's definitely a fascinating site.


Larry found this short film  there, from 1918.  The occasion was a Ford tractor demo day in a 'farming area of the United States'.  (Can you imagine the amazement that day?  Not only new powerful machines to do the work on the farm, but a moving picture camera was recording it all.  No wonder grandpa Janson had such high hopes for the 20th century!)
The set up is a tug-o-war between a tractor and about 20 men (who lose, of course).  But this gentleman evidently used the megaphone to direct the action.  It struck Larry that he looked like grandpa Anton Janson--small stature, curly hair, glasses, shirt and tie...
Yeah, I CAN hear your skepticism from here.  Ahem. You need to work on hiding it better...☺
BUT, we know some filming was done on farms around  Pierz in those years because we found an archival listing online mentioning Pierz and a farmer named Gau ("A SON OF THE SOIL- TAKEN ON HENRY GAU'S HORSELESS FARM NEAR PIERZ, MINNESOTA, ca. 1920"--National Archives, online).

Anyway, even if you think we're nuts, it's fun to view a few of those old films at Critical Past.  They're listed by decade, and there are quite a few from WWII.  The opening page montage gives you a pretty good idea.


You're welcome.

The Daniel Janson papers from 1853

Johannes Janson's family historian and genealogist Carrie took the time to scan almost 30 pages of an application prepared in Horrenberg, Germany, in 1853, when Johannes' parents wanted to emigrate to America.  They were Daniel Janson and his wife Maria Anna (Helfinger) Janson and six children.
Carrie was able to decipher some of it, and Larry and I have barely begun.  It's almost all handwritten by different people, so some looks legible and other parts look pretty scribbly.  Still, I want to post it so it's available as an historic document, and so maybe someone will be able to read it and see what they were required to document...and perhaps find the reason they were denied.

I think I'll post it five pages at a time cuz thats how Carrie sent it, and cuz it's less overwhelming that way ☺. All the pages should enlarge when you click on them.
From what I copied to Google Translate, the cover sheet says, more or less:

Großherzogl. Badisches
Bezirksamt Wiesloch
Verwaltungssachen
Ort: Horrenberg
Rubrik: Wegzug
Trans:
Grand Ducal. Baden  
District Office Wiesloch
Administrative Cases
Location: Horrenberg
Category: Exit
and then officialese for "Daniel Janson wants to leave with his family ASAP".....



Page 2 pretty much identifies who they're talking about.  Daniel was married twice, so the two children from his deceased wife are listed as tho they're contraband, before the second family. Still, that fussiness gives us all kinds of detail.
Kids from wife I, Regina Schweigert:
1) Magdalena 9 years old
2) Johannes   7    "      " 
Kids from wife II, Maria Anna Hilfinger:
3) Joseph      4 years old
4) Daniel       3   "      "
5) Valentin     2  "      "
6) Christina    1/4 "    "


Towards the bottom of the page theres something about 200.  A fee they had to pay?


 I assume some of this was affidavits from friends or religious docs from the priest, or tentative permission from local officials like the mayor.  
Or it could be documents that say they've paid all the debts they owed in town.


(Click the pages to enlarge)...


I think 4 and 5 is a statement by Daniel and Maria Anna themselves.  Their signatures are mid-page on 5, see?









The script they were taught to write was called Suetterlin. Here's a clear letter-for-letter transcription of their names.  (It's an interesting exercise to ID one letter and go find that same letter in the rest of the pages.  Handwriting really does make a difference!)


 Isn't this COOL?

An embarrassment of riches

It's odd that Larry and I come to dry spots in our research, and I think, ok, maybe that's all there is to discover about Jansons.  Then all of a sudden people like Steve and Carrie show up and bring possibilities to the table that we didn't know about, or that didn't make sense when we did see em.  

Today, I'm thinking "Woohoo! Where do I start??!"

Steve Janson (great grandson of the 1889 immigrant to Michigan Stefan Janson) sent vintage pictures of his family.  I haven't posted most cuz I'm not sure which generation I'm looking at.

This one he labeled "Great Grandma and Grandpa Stephen Janson".  Well, the immigrant Stefen was born in 1857, and came here about 1889.  If he's 60 years old in the photo, then it's 1917 and perfectly possible, both re the car and how they look, ya know?

Now this  photo was labeled Joseph Janson. Was this Stephan's brother?  If so, he was born in 1848, so no, this Joe had to be Stefan's son.  Maybe he owned that cool car? Probably the white clapboard house in the background was the same one too.

And IF this man was Stefan's son, then the next pic was earlier when he and sibs made their first communion (usually about 12 years old).

Wow, this photo really shows the "dark Janson" look, tho it might be an illusion against white clothes.  Steve labeled this one "Valentine, Joe and Marie Janson".  They were Stefan and Anna's oldest three kids. (Valentine b 1896, Marie b 1898 and Joseph b 1900).  I'm guessing this pic was taken about 1913, so Marie would have been 15, Val was 17, and Joe was 13.

  
If this was first communion, how come Joe had no prayer book to hold?  Cuz a kid didn't need his own book--they shared. 





Aww, a boy and his dog.  It's labeled "Grandpa Janson"--the fourth kid in the family, Stephan Anthony Janson.  He was born in 1902, and I assume he was our Steve's grandpa? Just imagine a beard and mustache on the pic below and you have Johannes, huh? 


BTW, I'm using the spelling STEFAN for the immigrant here, STEPHAN for his son, with STEVE for our contemporary Janson.   
We're missing a generation, I think!

"Stephan A Janson II",  b 1902.

Dark Jansons

Marion, Marlys and Lois c 1954

In the comments on yesterday's post, Carrie referred to dark haired, dark skinned Jansons, which made me think of genetics and this picture.  I got the dark, curly (fuzzy) Janson hair but I burn with 5 minutes in the sun. All four of my sibs got light colored eyes from them, and Marion thanks her Janson heritage for her long oval head...lol   I probably got my brassiness from the Heschs, huh? 

They stayed in the old country

This precious photograph traveled a long way, and probably became almost painful to look at as the years went by.  The couple is Daniel Janson and his second wife, Maria Anna Hilfinger.

They were the parents of Daniel Janson, who settled in Rice Minnesota, and Stephan Janson, who settled in Jackson, Michigan.  He and his first wife, Regina, were the parents of Johannes Janson, who arrived in Buckman, Minnesota with my great grandfather, Josef Janson and settled there. 

 Daniel was born in 1816 in Balzfeld, Germany and died there in 1897 at 81. Anna Hilfinger Janson was born in 1822 and died in 1902, at 80.

When Horrenberg families left for America in those years, they said goodbye for ever.  We know Wendelin went back for a visit, and probably others did too, but Wendelin was a kid when he left and only 25 when he returned.  Still, he would definitely have visited this couple and told them all about Amerika.

  (In fact, he would have stopped in Michigan on his way to NYC to board the ship, since the train route ran between the Great Lakes and into Canada then).

 Below is Daniel and Anna's son, Stephen, as a young man in Germany.  He would have been in the service just like his half-brother Johannes. 

When Stephen the great grandson of Stephen the immigrant sent these photos, he remarked about the inherited traits passed down among the Jansons--how much the men resembled each other, gen after gen.  

Having Daniels pic now makes me agree even more.  Look:

Do the actually look alike, or have I studied them so much I can't tell?  I don't know when Stephan II was born, and maybe he's not in the right generation, but the idea is to compare faces.  

The second pic ("Daniel?") is speculating, but he and the gentleman marked "guest" were at Johannes' 50th wedding anniversary in 1924.  

I think "Daniel?" might have been Johannes' brother from Rice, Mn and Stephan (who would have been 67) probably attended too, huh?

------------------

Nope, to answer my own question: Daniel Janson, who settled in Rice, Mn died in 1910, so he couldn't have been at the anniversary in 1924.  So, who was that bearded man?  He's the one who looks most like Johannes...

WOW, Stephan, these are so COOL!

Jansons, Sr Mamerta and Fr Coughlin

There's so MUCH to discover and connect to our extended family, especially with all the info available on line these days.  Our new found cousin Stephan, in Michigan, sent some pictures this morning (and promises more).  One was this one marked "Jack, Mamerta and I, Irish Hills"...

This was Stephan's daughter Marie Janson with her husband Jack Rose on one of Sr Mamerta's visits to Michigan. 

 I had to find out more about the Irish Hills, of course.  As I looked around online, it turns out the Irish Hills area is known for a couple of towers, and for St Joseph's Shrine, which was built by those Irish immigrants.  But, there seemed to be no structure similar to what's in the background here. Still, the Irish Hills were a definite draw for taking your cousin-who's-a-nun-from-Minnesota to see.  (Don't miss "History of the Irish Hill Towers" in this article...made me laugh out loud).

The Hills are west of Ann Arbor, and SE of (and closer to) Jackson, where the Janson's settled. Turns out the Irish Hills were a 19^th century stopping point during the 5-day stagecoach trip between Detroit and Chicago. 

Now, we need to switch gears to check out a 1930s Irish radio phenom from Michigan by the name of Fr Charles Coughlin.

At its peak in the early 1930s, Coughlin's radio show was phenomenally popular. His office received up to 80,000 letters per week from listeners, and his listening audience was estimated to rise at times to as much as a third of the nation. 

A priest on the radio would have been a must for Catholics in the country, including those in convents.  His influence would have been greater than Bishop Fulton J Sheen when we were kids, remember?
Anyway, his preaching got more and more anti-semitic and isolationist  until he was refused air-time by most radio stations.  His home church was  the Shrine of the Little Flower in Detroit, which "was completed in two stages, from 1931 to 1936, and funded by the proceeds of the radio ministry of the controversial Father Charles Coughlin who performed radio broadcasts from the tower".  The shrine is in Royal Oak, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.
And when were they visiting?  Well, Jack died in 1942 but looks pretty healthy in the photo.  I'm guessing it was taken c. 1938-39.
I expect Sr Mamerta might have asked to see Coughlin's church, and possibly even to meet him, since by 1939, he'd been demoted to being only a parish priest at the shrine.  He served there until he retired in 1966.   But see?  THIS is where they were standing in that picture at the top.
  
THANK YOU to Stephan!