A Big Octopus

That's what this Winkler family thing is starting to look like, if it's drawn out on a huge piece of paper, with Henry and Caroline in the center and all their 10 children radiating out from them... and their children, and their children...

I believe I finally accounted for the last of the girls, and am pretty sure about the boys. More concrete details will come as I find obituaries and other records. Last week I went with my mother (our first research trip together) to the huge San Francisco Main Library, though a little unprepared, to see what we could find in the microfilm archives of the newspapers that have been in Fog City since the mid-19th century. To our astonishment, we found out my mother's real grandmother's family came out to California as well, and so we first wanted to find where Grandma Gertrude was buried and her mother, Josephine Krauser- Brown. Luckily we found their obituaries, unfortunately they only referred to the funeral homes that served them, however, they did confirm some of the hard work I had done trying to locate the rest of the family. Mentioned are the sisters, Anna Hennessy, Juanita Brown-Kuntz, Myrtle Farmer, and brother Joseph Brown, some children as well, although no residences.

We also looked up three Winkler obituaries, Henry in 1914, William in 1908, and Frederick in 1907. I was hoping to find out which of the brothers who died rather young was involved in the construction site accident that I've heard about. We did confirm that Florence Winkler had married a Bruno, probably Nicholas who is buried with her parents and brothers and their infant without a name. Most of the funerals for this family were ar their own residence, with a procession by carriage to Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Colma.

This was all we had time for with the late start, lack of true preparation, and company of a wiggly 5 year old boy. Still and all, we were very happy to learn what we had, both about our ancestors and about how certain research is done at this 6 story facility.

I am working on a "shopping list" of dates and events to look up next time I go down that way, which should be some time this month. Arranging births, marriages, other events, and deaths in chronological order regardless of family will make it much easier to check them off and find more goodies at the library. Too much information is better than no information at all.

The families that will be researched are:

Ambrose, Brown, Bruno, Field, Franklin, Frische, Grimm, Heglin, Joos, Krogman,
Loewenguth, McGarvie, Olsen, Pastorino, Peterson, Pisani, Trabucco, Winkler...

If there are any more surnames that you know of, families who even passed through San Francisco, send an email to FAMILYOLOGIST at YAHOO.COM