Family Folklore and the Tale of Hungry Sam Miller
Genealogists deal with more than names, places, and dates. They must also attempt to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the ever told family stories. I am always careful who I tell...
Author: Mark Hagenbuch
A Picture’s Worth: Butchering Day Redux
“A picture is worth a thousand words” is an oft-heard phrase first coined in 1911 by newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane. In the article Butchering Day Memories From the Farm – Part 1, I mentioned...
A Boy Becomes a Genealogist
Most of my immediate family have heard the story of how I became interested in Hagenbuch genealogy and subsequently collected thousands of names, dates, and artifacts. One certainly has to be interested in history...
Butchering Day Memories from the Farm, Part 2
This article is a continuation of last week’s Butchering Day Memories from the Farm. In it, we got started with the pig butchering process: killing the hog, sticking it to bleed it out, scalding...
Butchering Day Memories from the Farm, Part 1
Last Tuesday was Fastnacht Day here in our part of Pennsylvania. In our Montour County household we called it Doughnut Day. It wasn’t until I moved to York County thirty years ago that I...
Wintertime Memories from Montour County
Preface One problem with writing about memories is that others who experienced those same moments may not remember them the same way. My siblings and cousins who also grew up in Montour County in...
Sunday School Picnic at Knoebels Grove, c. 1937
It is a fact that Oak Grove Lutheran Church, which is located between Pottsgrove and Danville, Pennsylvania, was often referred to as the “Hagenbuch Church” during the 1900s. That is certainly supported by the...
Montour County Christmas Memories
Rewriting the article on early Christmases last week brought to mind one of the wishes that all genealogists have: that our ancestors would have kept better records, especially of their every day life experiences....
The Beech Grove: Hagenbuch Family Newsletter
Since I was 13 years old I’ve always had in interest in our family history. Some folks tell me 13 is an early age to be making family trees and asking relatives what they...
Pronouncing Hagenbuch
As I have done many times when I have an appointment, I walked up to the receptionist’s desk and wrote my name on the pad – “Mark HAGENBUCH” (I print my last name and...
