Getting started with your family history? Check out How to Plant a Family Tree and the following blank forms:
Personal Data Forms (fillable PDF – allows genealogists to capture the complexities of different family structures)
Individual Dossier (fillable PDF – allows genealogists to provide more in-depth information on one individual)
Family Sheet (traditional genealogy form showing husband, wife & children – can be printed to fill out by hand)
I’m having difficulty locating a birth record for my ancestor (Ada Florence Hamilton, born 9 Sep 1876). I have located her living in Little Falls MN on the 1880 US Census, although her name is misspelled Eda F. Hamelton. She & I think her brother (Edward G. Hamilton, age 9 in 1880) were living with Mary & Samuel M. Hamilton (their aunt & uncle?), along with Mary’s father, Robert C. Masters, farmer & head of household. Would you be able to shed any light on Ada? Were she & her brother orphaned? Morrison county & Hennepin co. did not have a birth record for Ada. I know that she went on to marry Frank Stevens Selden on 17 Sep 1896 in Minneapolis, was the mother of my husband’s grandmother, and eventually died on 28 May 1904 in MN. Thank you for any assistance in this regard.
Angela Harrington Norton
Hillsborough, CA
Angela – You have run up against one of the difficulties of research in Minnesota. Birth and death certificates were not required to be registered with the counties or state until 1907, so any before that can be hard to find. For finding birth and death records prior to 1907, you have to pinpoint where a person was born and check at the township level. Likely, the birth was merely recorded as a listing in a ledger, with no certificate available. Church records of baptisms can also help prove a birth.
A number of Hamiltons lived in the Belle Prairie area of Morrison County. This is just north of Little Falls. I checked our Hamilton Family File, but could find no mention of Ada Florence, so I couldn’t tell whether she was any relation to the Hamiltons in the Belle Prairie area. I also checked the Minnesota Historical Society’s death index online to see if I could narrow down a birth place (the death index includes birthplace if known), but had no luck. I also looked for an obit in two of our county newspapers for that birthplace, but couldn’t find an obit for Ada, which could mean that she didn’t die in the county. (Death & birth certificates are required to be filed at the place of death or birth. If a person has a close connection to a location, but moves prior to death, sometimes the family will send an obit back to the person’s hometown newspaper.)
If you suspect Ada and Edward were orphaned, you could try contacting the Franciscan Sisters in Little Falls. They used to have an orphanage and their archives have information on it (although they might not have info on orphans who were there only a short time). The contact number for the Franciscan Sister is 320-632-2981. When you call, ask for the archives.
If you need more in-depth research, please send us an email at contactstaff@morrisoncountyhistory.org. Our research fees can be found on this page: http://morrisoncountyhistory.org/?page_id=1193
Good luck on your search!
Mary Warner
Museum Manager
Hi, I am trying to find information about a Evangelina King born July 11, 1908 in Minnesota, I found her listed on the 1920 census as an orphan in the St. Otto’s Orphanage as Evangie King age 12.
Does anyone have a listing of the children and where they came from? Maybe even who their parents were and why they came to the orphanage?
I’m guessing the parents may have died in the 1918 flu epidemic.
Thank you for your help,
Betty Morrison
Hi Betty-
Your best bet for finding information in regards to the orphanage would be contacting the Franciscan Sisters. You can reach them at (320)632-2981, or email them at info@fslf.org
Good luck on your search!
Grace Duxbury
Museum Assistant
Hi County History.org,
John Stumpf, the former CEO of Wells Fargo until the 2010s, might be another one to add to the list. He grew up on a chicken farm with his family near Pierz. He attended Mankato State as an undergrad (I believe), and after graduation matriculated to the MBA program of the University of Minnesoya, graduating sometime in the 1970s (he was born in 1953). He is related to some of the people profiled, since part of his family has been in the atea since the 1960s. John worked for Northwestern Bank, which was bought out by Wells Fargo – that’s how he worked up the ranks to be CEO. Retired after the scandal of Wells Fargo opening accounts that customers never asked for, he lives on the West Coast now.
Hi, Ann – Thanks for your suggestion of adding John Stumpf to the list of Morrison County Influentials. When we created the list in 2008, he was not really on our radar. It was not always easy to decide who would make the list, partially because there have been plenty of influential people in Morrison County’s history and staff doesn’t know the full histories of everyone. Some people are very quiet about their accomplishments. We also had trouble deciding whether to add people who were notorious in some way … so influential, but not necessarily in a good way. Until the Wells Fargo scandal, John Stumpf could have been considered influential in a positive way as CEO, but once the scandal broke and he stepped down, he became notorious. It’s a tricky business to put living people on lists such as ours because we don’t yet have a full scope of their history. Their accomplishments really have to outweigh their human failings and we can’t necessarily judge that until people have died.
We have John Stumpf’s story in our files and will certainly consider him if we decide to add to our list in the future.
Thanks again.
Mary Warner
Executive Director
I’m curious about whether the Museum has any county history books for the county and its pioneer residents, particularly between about 1890 and 1930 or so. I’m especially interested in the surnames of Klug/Kluge or Kugel.
Mary-
I took a look in our records to see what we could find for Klugs, Kluges, or Kugels and unfortunately our records don’t go back that far for them, only to about the 1950’s and newer. So sorry we couldn’t be more help in that regard!
Grace Duxbury
Museum Manager