Posts By: whuskonen

Are You Watching “Finding Your Roots” Season 5

I have just completed binge watching six episodes of Finding Your Roots broadcast by PBS affiliate WVIZ. These new episodes have been broadcast in recent weeks on PBS but for one reason or another, I didn’t watch them as they were broadcast. Instead, I had my digital video recorder set to capture the series, and

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More About My Revolutionary War Ancestor: Matthias Flaugh

Earilier, I posted about my ancestor Matthias Flaugh, who served in the German Regiment under General George Washington in the American Revolutionary War. In that posting, I included some information gleaned from a German newspaper article. Here is the link to that earlier post: http://www.collectingancestors.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=296&action=edit Today, I will post a transcription of the entire article

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Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter (Blog) Is 23!

Sometimes the flow of news about genealogy into my computer is overwhelming. That is my excuse for not earlier reading Dick Eastman’s Dec 15 blog posting about his online newsletter/blog being 23 years old. But I have caught up with that lengthy posting today, and all I have to say is “Congratulations,” Dick, on your

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Huskonen Family Oral History by Mary Jane Dingman Huskonen 1970

This oral family history was recorded on a reel-to-reel tape recorder in 1969 or 1970 at the home of Wallace and Mary Jane Huskonen, 6644 Hawthorne Dr, Brecksville, Ohio. Speaking was Mary Jane Huskonen (born Dingman, known simply as Mary) with comments by her son, Walfrid. Mary made the recording for her granddaughter Karen who

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Taking Yet Another DNA Test

Yesterday I gave myself a belated Christmas present: yet another DNA test. To date, I had tested my DNA with AncestryDNA, FamilyTreeDNA, and MyHeritage DNA. I tried testing with Living DNA, but in three separate swab sampling attempts, that DNA testing service was unable to get meaningful results from my samples so they refunded my

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Mom Was Born 110 Years Ago Today

Mary Jane Dingman was born on December 14, 1908 (110 years ago today), to Wallace Betts Dingman and Grace Green Morley Dingman. She was born at the family’s home in Conneaut, Ashtabula County, Ohio. She grew up to be a teacher, wife, and mother, then a teacher again, business manager, and finally a caregiver. Her

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She Rode to Work with Dad during WWII

At a meeting of the Finnish American Heritage Association (FAHA) at its museum in Ashtabula a couple of years ago, a friendly lady remarked to me that she rode to work with my father, Walfrid Herbert Huskonen, during World War II. They drove from my hometown, Andover, Ohio, about 12 miles south on Ohio Rt

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Kimi Räikkönen Saves My Sports Weekend

The weekend just ended was turning out to be a dismal one for me sport-wise. On Saturday, the Ohio State University Buckeyes lost a college football game to Purdue University that they should have won. On Sunday afternoon, the Cleveland Browns lost their game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in overtime. And on Sunday evening,

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Finnish Newspaper Features My Visit to Finland

This morning, I received an email from Cousin Matti in Finland with a digital image of the report in the Savo regional newspaper about my visit to Finland during the last week in June. The headline translates into “Enjoying a Visit to My Grandparents’ Birthplace.” I wrote a basic article and sent it to Matti

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Finding “Gold” in a 4th Cousin+ DNA Match

The other day, a new AncestryDNA match came to my attention. It was with Riikka and was at the fourth to sixth cousin level. AncestryDNA rated the result as “Confidence: High.” In fact, the little bar used to illustrate the degree of confidence was almost completely green. Looking into the match, I saw that it was

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