Long Line - 52 Ancestors challenge

This is a prompt from 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks and is run by Amy Johnson Crow.

Information on the Topic
Is there a trait or an occupation that seems to have been in your family tree for generations? Is there a line in your genealogy that's been in a particular place for a long, long time? Maybe you have Long as a surname.

Unlike the Bachelor Uncle topic, this one I could apply multiple of ways. Some of these are: 

• temper and stubbornness - Yep, on all sides and one of the traits my husband has pointed out multiple of times. 
• business owner and cooking/baking - Yep, on both sides of the family although some family members have more of a gift than others or so I'm told. 
• being the country and away from crowds - Yep, once again on all sides. 

I think I'm going to concentrate on the business owners. Sometimes they had combined the business owner with cooking and baking. 

On my mother's Gauquie side, we have had people as far back as the My 3rd and 4th great grandfathers Jean Baptiste and Jean-Francois Gauquie in 1806 were farmers in Belgium. I consider farms a small business and they had to sell whatever they were farming somehow. 

Document Credit: Herve Costille

Then you have the descendants who were a range of occupations:

Johannes Jacobus Gauquie (born 1792 died 1833) was an innkeeper in Boezinge, Belgium. 

Desiderius/Desire Franciscus 'Didier' Gauquie (born 1820 died 1878) who owned (along with his wife) a small business of a baker. 

Many of Desiderius' children had farms or owned their own or married into families where they owned their own businesses like Hotel Gauquie in Belgium. 

Credit

Jules Gauquie (born 1871 died 1946) he had his own diary farm and sold milk which his cousin took to market for him. Then he turned to owning land which was later either sold or given away to his second wife, Belle. 

                 

Many Jules' children had their own businesses as well. You had sons who took up farming and one who started his own business of cleaning chimneys and furnaces. His daughter started up their own dance studio. 

                                

From there the family doesn't really do too well with the owning of businesses or farming. However, Jules' great grandson, Jason, does own his business of heating and air conditioning company from 2002. 

To go further with the baking and cooking, my paternal great grandmother (Mary or Maryanna) all loved to bake and cook. She would spend hours baking and cooking away. Further, my paternal great grandfather (Adam), loved to make Polish sausage and eventually made his own smokehouse. People would drive from all over to buy his smoked food. My great grandfather was so busy making the smoked food, he had to limit how many times a week he made it because the other part of the business would suffer if he didn't. 

Credit: J. Schmitz - Her parents outside their Polish food store in Linden, New Jersey in the 1930s. 

They owned a small Polish deli in New Jersey. A few times they had to close or move it around due to the economy, but he always came back to running the business. He loved doing it and had taken serious hits when the Depression happened in 1929 and during the wars because he was trying to look out for his community so he would let people slide on food and payments. This ment at times, he would have to close their store and even once he had to work in a factory for a short time. 

When Adam passed away, after a long battle of stomach cancer, and they had to run a small sentence in the business directory about his passing because people were still trying to contact him after he stopped working. 

The love for baking and cooking has passed down. I like cooking and baking various dishes. However, the one who went even farther is my cousin, John S. Schmitz Jr who is an Executive Chef at Ocean Center in Florida. John's brother, Joseph, run his own accounting firm in Florida as well.  

                    

Credit - John S Schmitz Jr.                                            Credit - Joseph J. Schmitz

No matter how you look at it, we've have a long line of running businesses and the love of cooking and baking. 

Wishing my father a very Happy 86th Birthday & My nephew CJ a very 34th Happy Birthday!

Wishing my father a very Happy Birthday! 

 

Wishing my nephew a very Happy Birthday! 

Hope they BOTH have a great one!

Road Trips all over Australia and USA - Ancestors in 52 Weeks

This year's challenge is 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks and is run by Amy Johnson Crow.

Topic overview:

Here are a few ways you might interpret this prompt: an ancestor who moved a long distance, an ancestor who traveled for work, an ancestor you took a road trip in order to research, an ancestor who was a mechanic or was involved in the automobile business.

My husband and I do road trips when we can. My husband and I are both working on our family histories, so it can get interesting. We live in Australia, and so we go on more road trips to put his family history together. However, this being said, we usually go back to where I grew up in New York every few years, so we intend to do as much research road trips as we can mix in with catching up with family and friends, which makes it a busy time.

January and February 2019, we did the normal road trip - Fly from Melbourne Australia to Newark, New Jersey to visit family in the Hudson Valley in New York. It was for the sad event of my brother's death, but the upside was many treasures and information was found even with the limited time we had.

First up, the bad picture at the entry point in California. I'm going to apologize ahead of time for it. Out of the bad pictures you can have, this one was the WORST. You know its bad even when my husband says "Boy, that was a bad picture. The future generations are going crack up at that one!" Oh yeah it was bad.

Basically what I looked like (minus bags under eyes) in dog format. Credit

Then we went to check in and then off to see my father, who still lives in the area. This started the research trip, as my father, who's in his 80s, like to recap history now. It helps I am now open to it as well, but he does intend to repeat himself, but sometimes the repeating you catch something you didn't the first time and can ask questions about it.

Myself and my father at the VFW in New Paltz, New York. 

Besides, my brother's ceremony, we did get to spend a bit of time with my sister in law and nephew which was really good. I think it was helpful, to spend time with them and talk things out as we were, and still are, all still grieving.

Anyway, some of the highlights of the research trip:

• Found out how my parents met - at a movie theater where he worked. 

Mentions where my father lived and where he worked. Credit

• Found out about what he knew about my mother's father and oldest brother which was what I had heard and already figured out. 

My grandfather is 39 and proves what I had thought due to the way my mother talked. Credit

• Found out about how much he knew about my Uncle Jimmy and how much time he spent with them and my great grandmother (their grandmother) and how little time he spent with my great grandfather (their grandfather). 
• I got to drive around where my great grandfather on my mother's father's side had land and got to take a picture of the house where my grandfather was born. Its since been sold a few times and is not in the family. 

The house where my great grandparents lived, and my grandfather and all his siblings lived in Blooming Grove. Picture taken January 2019. Copyright B. Fitzgerald

• Found out where my mother's side were buried including grandparents, great grandparents, great aunts and uncles. We never knew where my grandmother Janet was buried and I found a headstone with her information on it, but we still have to clarify if her remains are buried there, but my gut is saying she is.

Various pictures around cemeteries we visited. Credit: J. Fitzgerald

• Visited my great uncle's name on the war memorial in Newburgh. I have his wings which he gave to my mother and my mother gave to me. 

The wings of James J Sherman. Credit J. Fitzgerald

Memorial which has Jimmy's name listed we visited January 2019. Credit: J. Fitzgerald

Memorial which has Jimmy's name listed, close up, we visited January 2019. Credit: J. Fitzgerald

• Found out why my grandmother's last name changed to Barry from Jagodzinski. I researched it and found they were probably berry farmers in Poland, but found they had changed it, so my great grandfather (and family) would be more Americanized name. They were thinking they were being passed over for jobs and other things due to their name. 
• Spent some quality time with my cousins and Uncle Jimmy learning more and having questions answered if we knew. 

My Uncle and cousins on my mother's side with me in February 2019. Credit J. Fitzgerald

• Also, visited where my paternal grandparents had their bar and grill in the 1940-1960s in Newburgh. 

As you can see, it was a full two weeks we were there. We always have things to do and try and do fun stuff, as well, so we went to see Washington's Headquarters for my husband's family history is part of (a relative did a smaller tower in Ireland as a tribute to Washington) and we went for a walk over the Walkway over the Hudson. 

My husband at a snowy Washington's Headquarters in Newburgh Jan 29, 2019. Credit J. Fitzgerald

My husband at Walkway over the Hudson Jan 28, 2019. Credit J. Fitzgerald

Even with snow and ice mixed in with a memorial, you can always find something to with genealogy.