Valentine’s Day anniversary
The Legal Genealogist usually doesn’t do family posts during the week but…
It’s Valentine’s Day.
And not just Valentine’s Day, but the 100th anniversary of an event without which The Legal Genealogist wouldn’t be here.
One hundred years ago today, Hugo Ernst Geissler and Marie Margarethe Nuckel were married at St. Jakobi Church in Bremen, Germany,1 after a civil ceremony at the City Registrar’s Office.2
Happy 100th anniversary to my paternal grandparents!
Their marriage and their later decision to emigrate to the United States — bringing my then three-year-old father along3 — certainly changed the course of my personal history in a big way.
What’s the big Valentine’s Day event in your family?
SOURCES
- Heiraten (Marriages), p. 41, nr. 5, Geißler-Nuckel, 14 Feb 1918; Kirchenbuch (Church Book), Evangelische Kirche St. Jakobi, Bremen, Heiraten 1911-1930; FHL INTL microfilm 953,273. ↩
- Bescheinigung der Eheschließung (Certificate of Marriage), nr. 135 (1918), Geißler-Nuckel, Standesamt (Registry Office), Bremen. ↩
- Manifest, S.S. George Washington, Jan-Feb 1925, p. 59 (stamped), lines 4-6, Geissler family, 4; “New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957,” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 14 Feb 2018); citing National Archive microfilm publication T715, roll 3605. ↩
Not so much “changed the course” of your personal history, but actually set the possibility of your life in motion! It’s such a sobering idea that, were it not for an number of actions and decisions – both large and small – made by our ancestors, none of us would be here. Others might be here in our place were it not for something as insignificant as a headache! LOL
Ain’t that the truth… One “not tonight, dear…” and how different things would have been… 🙂
My paternal grandmother, Evelyn Ada Farnham McMillan was born on February 14, 1908 in a blizzard in Bemidji, MN. She loved being a Valentine baby and red was her color. She lived to be 103 and she was my genealogy inspiration as I realized I had the chance to learn from someone who had actually lived through a tremendous amount of history. When she turned 80, I decided I should travel to spend her birthday with her in the coming years, as she might not live much longer. Little did I know that I would spend the next 23 years traveling to see her on Valentine’s day. What a treasure. I’m so thankful for those years and it never seems quite right to not be with her today!
What an absolutely lovely story — and what a joy for you to have had all that time with her!
Judy, you certainly got a good portion of the Nuckel genes! I can see you in your grandmother’s face. A fine-looking couple.
Thanks. My mother’s side, of course, says I look like my mother!