You typically see pedigrees set out with the paternal side above and the maternal side below. Since this year I’m examining my Grandparent’s Great Great Grandparents (my Gx4 Grandparents), it would mean first looking at my paternal grandfather’s line, followed by my paternal grandmother’s line, my maternal grandfather’s line, closing with my maternal grandmother’s line.
I’ve decided to flip it around.
I still intend to follow the approach I described last post for this year’s 52 Ancestors Challenge. However, I’m going to start where one would usually end, at the lowest branch of maternal grandmother’s pedigree chart, Klara Stumpf. For anyone familiar with Ahnentafels (a genealogical numbering system for listing a person’s direct ancestors in a fixed sequence of ascent), Klara is the person who is last on the list of my seventh generation of ancestors.
However, as I noted last post, I’ve got 64 Gx4 Grandparents to fit into a 52 card deck. For seven, I don’t have as so much as a name, so I can leave them out of the deck. That still leaves 57 – four too many.
For my maternal grandmother, I know four pairs of her Gx2 Grandparents. If I combine those sets together, it brings me to 52. The only remaining person on that line is my maternal grandmother’s direct paternal Gx2 Grandfather, who I both know and don’t know. It’s either Michael or Bernard Lerner, sons of Franz Ignaz and and Maria Eva Geiger. Since I am uncertain as to which brother is my Gx4 Grandfather, by leaving them out it brings this year’s deck to 52.
However, in fairness, I’ll set out what I do know about Michael and Bernard:
Michael Lerner was born on July 11, 1793 in Malsch, Karlsruhe, Baden. He was married to Maria Eva Eberle, born June 3, 1793 in Pleisweiler, Bergzabern, Pfalz, although the evidence of this marriage is not verified.
Bernard Lerner born February 27, 1798 in Malsch, Karlsruhe, Baden. Bernard was married to Barbara Heil, who was born about 1799 in Niederlustadt, Germersheim, Pfalz.
With that, let’s start the 2026 52 Ancestors Challenge!
After posting last week’s entry, in which I wrote about being my own cousin, I realized that it very well could have fit in with this week’s theme of “Me, Myself, and I”. However, to mark the last (!?!) week of Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors Challenge for 2023, the thing I will share about myself is how I have used the challenge to the fullest.
I wrote a family history book!
I originally signed up for the 52 Ancestors Challenge for 2020, but did nothing afterwards. I signed up again for 2021, for which I also did nothing.
Somehow third time was the charm. I know there was something that spurred me on to actually do something for the 2022 challenge, but now for the life of me I can’t recall what that was!
For years I had vaguely pondered a genealogy blog, but really couldn’t think of a niche that wasn’t already being addressed by dozens of other genealogy blogs. However, the 52 Ancestors Challenge was the catalyst to creativity that I needed. So a quarter century after blogging was cool, I created this blog as a means of participating in the challenge.
At the same time, I set up a second Twitter (I refuse to use the “new” name) account that would only be used for genealogy, also named Deck of Ancestors. I’ve since created namesake accounts on Mastodon, the now defunct Pebble, Mastodon, and Bluesky. I’ve largely abandoned Mastodon. I’m active on Bluesky, but it doesn’t seem to be gaining the traction I thought it had when I first joined.
It was hard at times, but I was successful in posting something for all 52 weeks of the challenge. With this post, I’ll be successful for a second year in a row. The second year was more difficult. It felt harder to come up with something I hadn’t written about before and some of the weekly prompts were not easy for me. Nevertheless, I persevered! I’ve signed up for the challenge again for 2024. Looking at the prompts, it looks like it will be another difficult year, but I will try to rise to the challenge.
However, what I’ve always wanted to do is create some sort of family history book. However, I was reluctant to churn out one of those dry tomes that’s just a bunch of pedigree charts and a BMD narrative. I’ve started and stopped all sorts of drafts and have the works in progress still sitting in a folder on my computer.
My real first genealogy book!
Moreover, like a lot of family historians, I had lots of ideas for genealogy-related Christmas presents, but kept putting it off until it was too close to the holiday to get it done.
Thanks to the 52 Ancestors challenge, I inadvertently hit upon what I thought was a winning solution – the blog posts were essentially a book! I had the foresight to start working on this project in the summer, which began with reformatting the blog entries into a book format. The other problem was figuring out how to print it.
Luckily, this year I discovered Lulu, an online self-publishing site. I had used others before, but none worked for this project. In September I ordered a test copy. It passed muster, so I ordered enough copies for my Christmas gift giving – my parents, our kids, my siblings, and my nibblings, plus copies for the Library and Archives Canada. (It may be nerdy, but I was really excited to get an ISBN for the project!)
A Stack of Ancestors!
So here it is, my family history book, A Deck of Ancestors, consisting of my 52 posts for the first year I participated in the 52 Ancestors Challenge. One of my sisters and her kids opened theirs early, as they went overseas for the holidays. I just made it a Hanukkah gift instead. The reviews were great. On Christmas Eve, my sister-in-law sent me photos of my father reading the copy I gave my parents. Seeing that was really special. While my father used to be a voracious reader, he doesn’t really read much anymore since his vision has deteriorated terribly over recent years. What I was most excited for was to see our kids open their copy. I was happy to come downstairs on Boxing Day morning to see our eldest engrossed in his.
In addition to the print version, I created an expanded digital edition (with its own unique ISBN, of course), which I sent to everyone after they opened their print copy. Among other things, I added an Ahnentafel, a 17-generation pedigree chart, and a full index. (I hate non-fiction books without an index!) It would have been extremely expensive to include all that in a print version. Plus, the digital version has all the hyperlinks, which are pretty hard to click in a print edition!
So thank you Amy Johnson Crow for creating the 52 Ancestors Challenge and helping me fill the one gap in my years of genealogy practice – writing!
A Deck of Ancestors 