Christmas Ornaments
The tradition of decorating an evergreen tree during the Christmas season is believed to have started in Germany during the 1500s. Our early Hagenbuch ancestors certainly knew and practiced this custom before coming to...
This Week's Article From the Beech Grove
The School Christmas Program
In 2014, I wrote about my memories of Christmas at our family church, Oak Grove, when I was a young boy. Though not quite as vivid, I also have some memories of when I...
A Postcard For Salome Hagenbuch
A few months ago, I found a postcard on eBay that was sent from Guy Davis in Nazareth, Pennsylvania to Salome Hagenbuch in Bowmanstown, Pennsylvania. It was postmarked September 4, 1911. On the back...
California, Here We Come!
Back in 1979 when I was attempting to contact every Hagenbuch I could through snail mail, I received information from Robert L. Hagenbaugh (b. 1921) from Springville, California. Robert (as previously written in the...
Mystery Solved: The Missing Hagenbuch Gravestones
This article is the second part in a series documenting a visit to the Hagenbuch homestead in October of 2018. The first part can be read here. After finishing our lunch at the Deitsch...
Recent Ruminations
When Andrew and I started this site more than four years ago, I wondered if we would have enough information to write an article each week. Little did I realize that as more and...
A Visit to the Hagenbuch Homestead
Several weeks ago, I visited the Hagenbuch homestead in Berks County, Pennsylvania along with my father, mother, and wife. The purpose of our visit was to explore the buildings at the homestead, as well...
Hannah (McWilliams) Davis: Young to Old
In talking to other genealogists, I am reminded how fortunate I am to to have so many family photos—some dating back to the latter half of the 19th century, a few even earlier. Part...
Picnics in the Cemetery
Cemeteries are spooky places, right? After all, during Halloween, people set up plastic gravestones in their front yards to scare the trick-or-treaters. Shortly after arriving in California in 2008, the friend I was staying...
Cop and Robber
Several months ago Andrew found a photograph on eBay that was for sale. The image depicted a Los Angeles policeman, W. R. Hagenbaugh, with a robber, Joe Miller. Andrew purchased the photo for the...
