Those Koleber daughters were outnumbered

In the photo above, my grandmother, Amalia 'Mollie' Koleber is the little girl in the center, pictured with her father George Koleber, oldest brother George Jr. and brother Daniel standing behind her. A year before this photo was taken, this family emigrated from Kratzke, Russia. Grandma Mollie's mother, at right in the photo, was Catherine Elisabeth Dietz.  "Katie" was the daughter of George Daniel Dietz and Maria Elisabeth Meier, pictured below.  

The photo below shows Daniel and Mary (Meier) Dietz with daughter Katie at left and son Ludwig at right.

As I was again adding "Titles" to the photos I've uploaded to the Family Tree at FamilySearch.org, I reviewed the obituary of Mary (Meier) Dietz, shown below.

The obituary explains that Mary Dietz gave birth to nine children, EIGHT sons and one daughter. So my great grandmother Katie was their only daughter. 

As it happens, my great grandmother also had only ONE daughter and had SEVEN sons. 

Mollie (Koleber) Margheim with left to right
Alfred, Ernest, LaVerna and Leonard

Katie's daughter Mollie (Koleber) Margheim, my grandmother, gave birth to THREE sons and ONE daughter, shown above.

John and Mollie (Koleber) Margheim with LaVerna,
Ernest and Leonard. Son Alfred had died in 1933.

I hadn't realized daughters were in such short supply in those three generations of my Grandma's Koleber ancestry! 

PS: After I posted this story on Facebook, I learned from the wife of George Koleber's grandson (Sandra Skold Koleber) that they also have had 6 sons and one daughter! George is the oldest son in the photo at the top of this blog post. 

Making My Dietz Connections Personal

As I mentioned in my last post (Oct. 12), an email last week from a wonderful gentleman in the state of Washington spurred me to do more investigating into my paternal grandmother's maternal family, the family of George Daniel and Maria Elizabeth Meier Dietz, pictured seated at right. Follow that? My dad's mother's mother's family. My husband asks "Why don't you just say your great-great grandparents?" I think many of us who work on these genealogies know the answer to that. We have hundreds of great, great-grandparents. I like to track the connection or relationship through a particular parent and grandparent because it makes them more real to me. To refer to a man (in this case George Daniel Dietz) as my Grandma's Grandpa helps me consider what my Grandma might have felt for her Grandpa Dietz, just as I cherish the feelings and relationship I had with my Grandpa. If I just think of this man as my Great, Great, Grandfather George Daniel Dietz, it takes the human connection away and he just becomes another Ancestor.

At left is a photo of me and my son Matt and at right is a photo of my father Ernest. Here are generations four, five and six of the descendants of George Daniel and Maria Elizabeth Dietz.

This is my Dad's mother, my Grandma Amalia "Mollie" Koleber Margheim. And at right is a photo of her as a very small girl, with her two brothers and parents, John George and Katherine Elisabeth "Katie" Dietz Koleber.

In the photo at the stop of this story is Katie Dietz Koleber (top left) with her brother Johann Ludwig Dietz (top right) and their parents George Daniel Dietz and Katharine Elisabeth Meier Dietz.

And here's a photo of my Grandmother with her brothers and parents. Katherine Elisabeth "Katie" Dietz Koleber is seated front row right with seven of her children. Her son Daniel passed away at age 17, just 3 days before his eighteenth birthday. In the picture above with my Grandma Mollie as a very young girl, Daniel is standing right above my Grandmother. A handsome young man!

Our six-generation Dietz line: George Daniel, to his daughter Katharine Elisabeth (Katie) Dietz Koleber, to her daughter Amalia "Mollie" Koleber Margheim, to her son Ernest Ludwig Margheim, to me, Mary Rebecca "Becky" Margheim Jamison to my son Matt C. Klein.

From the year of the birth of my son's daughter in 2000 to the year of George Daniel's birth in 1852: 148 years. Seven generations in 148 years. I wish my great, great grandparents could know their sweet little 3rd great, granddaughter. I'll share these pictures with her one of these days so her 6th great grandparents will become more personal to her too.