THE HANSON AND GLYNN FAMILIES
Part VII: ADDENDUM AND SOURCES OF INFORMATION
We hope to fill in holes in these records in the future. I now have a 2600 picture record of our families including Doreothe’s ancestors through our grandchildren. For the Hansons, I had the great advantage of research completed for the family tree in the 1940s by Father Mell Morrin, then of St. Mary’s church in Iowa County, IA. Some of the information gathered in this brief history of the Hansons came from research of Rose Tollar, Katherine Reid and Mary Lou Kollar. Katherine Reid spent time in Iowa and South Dakota gathering documents and information that has proven valuable to all of us.
Doreothe benefited greatly from the previous work and help of Katherine Munneke, Irene Kirwan, and a short personal biography plus records of Bridget Glynn Carsten who died a few years ago at the age of 104.
We spent many hours searching records in courthouses, cemeteries, contacting distant and close relatives, searching the Internet for other records and leads, and recording the information in this document. We believe the pictorial record is also informative and took as much time to scan photos, organize them into albums on our computers, and edit the pictures to improve their quality. I am deeply grateful to those who have shared photos for the albums and letters from relatives that helped paint an accurate picture of the frontier. For the Glynns, the biographies of William and John Boland and Bridget Carsten were most interesting to us. The pictures of the William Glynn Family and some early pictures of the Flynns, Bolands, and Glynns provided by Mary Glynn Wilhelm are valuable. We are very grateful to those persons for their generosity.
We hope you will continue to share records you have, as we will share this history with all descendants and relatives who are also willing to share information with us.
We have verified records as much as possible and when there is some doubt about the authenticity of the record presented, we try to make clear if an hypothesis has not been authenticated by more than one record. We have found that memories can be clouded and inaccurate.
We want to copy all the official documents we have (about 60 documents) and make sure there are repositories in more than one place so these records will be available to future generations. Please suggest good repositories like historical societies or genealogical societies. We think it is important to have documents like obituaries, letters, homestead filings, birth, marriage and death records, biographies, and other records available together in multiple locations for future use. Feel free to make deposits yourself. If you retain the authorship for information you have gathered and recorded, simply copyright the information. The process is rather simple. We have deposited a previous version of this history with the Genealogical Society of Charles Mix County and plan to send an updated version to the South Dakota Historical Society and the South Dakota GenWeb and their genealogical societies when we feel satisfied with the editing and completeness of the information. Mary Lou Kollar, Katherine Reid, and our children will get copies of documents as we proceed. We might spare someone a lot of work in the future. We hope you will point out inaccuracies in anything in these histories that can be documented so that we can present a truthful and accurate record for future generations.
I hope more Hansons and Glynns will write their family histories particularly the migrations to California, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Oregon, and elsewhere. They would add a lot to the Hanson and Glynn family histories. These are distinguished families that we can all be proud of.
The Glynns and Hansons and their ancestors have an equally distinguished history. It is hard to imagine the hardships that were endured during the settlement of the Iowa and Dakota frontiers. They certainly contributed their share to make this country what it is today.
SOME OF THE INFORMATION SOURCES USED AND CITED
1. Epic of the Great Exodus. A good history of Dakota Territory and Charles Mix County where Platte is located. It is a large book (about 650 pages), compiled by Adeline S. Gnirk of Burke, SD. There are many pictures and details of many families and their histories. Unfortunately, none of Hanson family or the Glynn family were available able, or were asked to write the Hanson family and Glynn family Histories story when it was prepared. However, short but inaccurate histories have been presented in the book.
2. A History of Iowa County, Iowa. This has considerable information about the arrivals of and contributions of the Hanson families. The Friends of Old St. Michaels newsletter (centennial edition), and the History of St. Michael’s Church and Old Man Creek also provide good information about the early families.
A History of Monroe County Iowa was important to us in order to understand the environment the Glynns moved to when they came to America. They lived near Hiteman. Therefore, History of Hiteman, a mining town was important for the same reasons. These are available from sources described in the Monroe County GenWeb site.
3. Genealogical Societies and GenWeb sites of various counties state historical society web sites. Some are hard to get information from without visiting them but the Monroe County Genealogical Society where the Glynns first settled was very helpful in providing leads (at $10.00 per hour). I find that historical societies of states have good records and knowledge of how to find them. The new GenWeb program is gathering information available online through counties and state genealogical societies. It is becoming a very good source of information. The Iowa County Iowa GenWeb site that is maintained by Steve Williams and Netha Meyer has many obituaries and pictures of gravesites coming online. Netha has almost 3000 obituaries that should be online soon.
For example, the Iowa History Project which is available through the Iowa GenWeb site has some very good historical information and leads to other sources. Most libraries provide access to Ancestory.com and their use can save a great deal of money and solicitations for subscriptions to new editions and additional services. The services in Iowa County, IA particularly Netha Meyers, and Rita McDonald at the Williamsburg Historical Commission and have been invaluable. The same can be said for the Monroe County Genealogical Society (Glynns) and the Fillmore County, MN genealogical society (Flynns). The South Dakota Historical Society has several biographies available and this history will be deposited there. It now has biographies of the Bolands and others of interest to us.
We understand that the Iowa Historical Society in Des Moine is a very good place to search for some information but we have not been there because our other sources have been so productive.
4. Various documents and letters obtained from relatives and our families and from friends in Platte, SD. I have copied land records, obituaries, correspondence etc. that have been available through County Records at various County courthouses. Letters or copies of letters written during the depression by S. J. Hanson’s children were particularly interesting.
5. Searches of the census records online. Searches of birth, death, marriage and immigration records remain to be exhausted. Some of these are just now being compiled in accessible forms. I found the subscriptions to genealogical search services not to be very useful and fairly expensive. The relatively new state GenWeb. Sites are more complete every month. They are funded by public funds and follow a set pattern from state to state.
6. The Hanson Family Tree that was written by Father Mel G. Morrin that is a good history of the Hanson’s lineage without birthdates, birthplaces, dates of arrival in the U.S. or other places, or dates of deaths. The family tree was written by Father Mel G. Morrin after a gatherining of the Hansons in Williamsburg, Iowa in 1944, the centennial of the Hanson’s arrival in Iowa. I attended this large gathering with my family. I was nine years old. A very large number attended, some from a great distance considering that it was still wartime. The book lists all of the descendants through my generation and is invaluable in this regard. It does not contain dates of events except the arrival of Thomas and Stephen in Iowa. There are errors in the book that we have corrected in the family tree presented here. At some point Mary Lou Kollar’s tree should be published, it is very well done and represents a great effort. It is more comprehensive than the trees that I have provided in this history. It includes all the descendants of S. J. and Annie Byrnes Hanson.
In August 2008, Doreothe and I went to Williamsburg and met with several descendents of the Hanson family. This gathering was organized by Rita McDonald and her mother Netha Meyer. We viewed the original homesite and the cemeteries at Williamsburg, Parnell, and St. Michaels at Holbrook where many of the original families were buried. We photographed gravestones of several members of the Hanson, Byrne, and Meyer families. We shared many photographs and many other documents and information that have shed much new light on these families. I cannot thank Rita and her mother and Mary Hanson Miller enough for all their help in gathering and copying information.
Those we met were Bill McDonald, a descendant of Thomas Hanson, Mary Hanson Miller, Mary Hanson Miller, a descendant of Thomas Hanson, George and Roberta Hanson, a descendant of Thomas, Rita Marina, a descendant of Thomas Hanson, Bert Hanson, from Ottumawa, IA., a descendant of Thomas Hanson, Stephen Hanson, a descendant of Thomas Hanson, Kathleen Dunn, a descendant of James and Elizabeth Dunn. James and Kathleen Dunn were the parents of Maggie Dunn Hanson my great grandmother. This group not only shared documents, but we obtained several valuable photographs. Stephen Hanson also opened St. Michaels church, a highlight of the trip. The church is magnificent from the inside. It is truly remarkable that it could have been built by the community; It was an extremely informative meeting. These people were familiar with some of the family history that could not be obtained online.
7. Richard’s mother’s family, Konechne, has a very rich history. The Bohemians, as they proudly referred to themselves, were very good at recording and publishing their histories. I have copies of books on the Czechs in South Dakota. A translation of the book, Pamatni Kniha-Dejiny Cechuv ve statu South Dakota (Memorial book-History of Czechs in the State of South Dakota), compiled by Joseph Dvorak in 1920 was particularly valuable to me in writing this history. It was given to me as a gift by my remarkable and much loved aunt, Lucille Konechne Houda.
Lucille Houda has kept very good records of their history as well and very good written records and commentaries from personal experiences. Lucille has established a very good museum and library in the basement of the Holy Trinity Church that has been moved from Bendon to a site near Kimball, SD. Thanks to her efforts it is now on the registry of National Historic sites and a good record of the histories of several Bohemian and Czech families is preserved there. I can readily trace my ancestors with good stories, documents, photographs, and various artifacts from their arrival in America to the present time. This is a very good example of a depository of historical value.
8. Several books on the history of Ireland were consulted but not quoted directly except as noted. The internet was used to research the histories of the counties and cities of Ireland from which the Hansons and Glynns emigrated as well as reference books in local libraries. I have recently read book that I enjoyed a great deal. It is Ireland, a Novel by Frank Delany. He uses a traveling storyteller, a young student in Trinity College and a history professor as major characters to describe important events in Irish History. I was convinced that he has done a great deal of research to document events although he obviously took a bit of license to make the stories more entertaining. Delany was born in Ireland and had a successful career in broadcasting. He has written several books on Ireland and Ireland’s writers, and principal players in Irish History. The Famine Ships by Laxton should be read by thos interested in the history of their Irish ancestors to help understand the terrible conditions encountered on the voyage to America by those who were not wealthy. The mass migrations from 1846-1856 caused crowding and the use of ships that were not very sea worthy.
The history of England has been equally important in order to obtain a balanced viewpoint regarding events in Irish history. I, Richard, have always had an interest in Bristish and American history and have read a great deal on these subjects. I have travelled in England on several occasions as part of my profesional acitivities and my interest has continuously been stimulated to learn about the people who inhabited the various places I visited. I recommend the book Reign by Reign by Stephen Usherwood as a quick reference to the different periods and monarchs in English history. Libraries are full of other good books on American and British histories.
I have subscribed to the Ireland Newsletter for a few years since beginning to write these histories. Some issues have very good historical information. The April 2006 issue had a rather long and very informative article on the Easter Rising of 1916 that accelerated the movement of Southern Ireland toward independence from England although most of Ulster remains tied to the Crown.
9. Some books on the history of South Dakota also provided interesting and informative reading and information. In particular, South Dakota, A History, by John R. Milton. Published by the American Association for State and Local History, Nashville, TN. I liked the writing style of John Milton who did more than just recite facts. He also added color and interest to the facts. I have read many books on the history of the Native Americans of the Great Plains, particularly Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, Gall, Black Elk, and to a lesser extent, Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse was a very private man and left little solid information behind. He usually did not attend councils and did not tell stories as some of the other medicine men and chiefs did. I have been an avid reader of many of the books on the histories of the Lakota-Sioux tribes that banded together to form a great nation on the northern plains although they were relatively recent “settlers” in this area themselves. I am a great admirer of their cultures, spiritual beliefs, and customs.
I have vigorously resisted the temptation to write about my views of the genocide practiced against the Native Americans and the isolation of this race on reservations that were too small and inadequate in resources to support the populations of a people who by culture were hunters and seasonally nomadic. I feel I am not a qualified historian and there many good books available.
10. The epic novel by O. E. Rolvaag, Giants in the Earth is recommended to anyone interested in the history of early settlement on the Great Plains. It describes in detail the suffering, problems and experiences of the first people to arrive in the central part of South Dakota on the Great Plains grasslands. It is a novel and the characters are fictional, but great attention to the realism of the experiences was employed in writing the book. Rolvaag did a great deal of research through interviews with people who experienced the first settlements in an area 52 miles west of Sioux Falls. This settlement occurred shortly after that along the Missouri River and the settlers had no contact with each other. Rather, those in the Rolvaag book contacted a few settlers near the James and Sioux rivers. A trip of about 90 miles to Worthington MN was necessary for many supplies and was a major undertaking. Rolvaag wrote two additional works of fiction based on considerable research that followed Giants in the Earth that continued the saga of emigrant families in South Dakota. They were: Peder Victorius, and Their Fathers God.These books deal with several issues including early political development, religious strife, breaking with traditions of Scandinavia etc.
Similarly, the book, The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin also describes the severe life on the Great Plains during settlement. This book is considered non-fiction but acurately describes the blizzard of 1888 and the people who experienced it in great detail. It gives many details similar to those I found in histories of the Czechs and Irish in South Dakota and on the great plains.
Books in the Emigrant Series by Vilhelm Moberg gave much information about the problems faced by emigrants to Minnesota from Sweden, many of which were experienced by emigrants to other states and from other countries.
Books Conrad Richter including The Sea of Grass were also informative about the lives of immigrants shortly after they arrived in America.
11. Saint Michael’s church HOLBROOK and the Old Man Creek Settlement, 1981. This repeats some of the information found in the History of Iowa County but has some more detailed information. Available through the Iowa County GenWeb site.
12. The History of Williamsburg Iowa 1851-2007. Volume II geneology Published in 2007 and companion book on the history of Williamsburg are available for $58.00 through the Iowa County Historical Commission. The companion volume will be available about December 2008. See the Iowa County GenWeb site for information. These volumes have some unique information regarding the Hanson family.
END.< Part VI