The Genealogy Geek: My personal family research

Find information regarding all my ancestors and more on my family tree. I have over 30,000 people documented including additional information when I can regarding spouses and their families. If you come across any incorrect information, please contact me. I strive to have the most accurate information possible.

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All living individuals are listed as private.

I have spent the last 20 years researching my Finnish heritage, this was the first family I researched. I was hooked from then on. My tree goes back to circa 1669. I am only the 5th generation of the Johan Petter Josefinpoika Maaninka family; and my great grandfather was the only child that survived and had children. His other children died of TB in their early 20's.

My Maninga ancestors name changed from  Kotajärvi  to Maaninka in 1850 when  Josef Juho Pekanpoika Kotajärvi married  Valpuri Pekantytär Maaninka. 

In Finland, last names could depend on where you lived in Finland.

• Eastern Finland - Surnames were common among the common folk in the 13th century. They were often based on the first names of the family patriarchs, and women would use the family name of their father with a feminine suffix. By the 19th century, this practice fell out of use. 
• Western Finland - Surnames were not used until the 20th century because settlers lived on farms for longer periods of time and used the farm name as part of their descriptive name. In 1920, a law was passed requiring surnames for all Finns. 

When my 2nd great grandfather  Johan Petter Josefinpoika Maaninka moved to America, Maaninka was spelled with double a's and a "k" instead of a "g". When Americanized the "k" became a "g" as the "k" sounds like a "g". His brother Olaf Maaninka also moved to Minnesota in the same area. The family story goes that there were two cousins named Eino Maaninga and they kept getting each others mail, so one of them changed the spelling to Maninga. Now I haven't found any proof of this but they did change the spellings for the two families; Maaninga and Maninga, we are both related (I was told when I started that we were not) but the Maaninga's are part of Olaf Maaninka's family and the Maninga's are part of Johan Petters Maaninka's family.

How did our last name become Maaninka?

In my families case, when Josef Kotajärvi married Valpuri Maaninka, they lived on the Maaninka farm where she came from so he changed his last name to Maaninka. That was a common practice.

My grandfather Benjamin Maninga married my grandmother Hazel Mildred Arola in 1941. My grandmothers parents were Gust Arola and Elma Elizabeth White. They had 12 children so this family is quite large.

My research does not have the Arola family going back as far. I only confidentally able to to go about 1855 with William Mikko Arola.  

I can only trace my great grandmother Elma White's family back to 1865 to her father  John Hugo White.  

Both of these families need more research, but seems to be more difficult. They resided in the Muhos, Oulu area of Finland, and I'm wondering if their last names are difficult to trace due the relative closeness to Sweden (which can affect the names) and perhaps because Sweden once owned Finland. Any help with these two families would be greatly appreciated.

The second family that I started to research was my mother's paternal side of the family. The Burlingame's have a long history in America with my ancestor Roger Burlingame arriving in America in 1654. The Burlingame family has many lines to follow as Roger had 11 children with Mary Elizabeth Lippett. He was married prior to coming to America to Jacolyn Huntington and they had one child. From what I can uncover they both died prior to him arriving in America. I have found little information on Jacolyn's family.

Roger and his children made their mark on America. Roger was the founder of the Burlingame family in America. The Burlingame family is well recorded. The Roger's children and their families primarily resided in Rhode Island.

My 5th great grandfather, Nathan Burlingame (1762-1857), moved to New York after the Revolutionary War where he died. My 4th great grandfather and Nathan's son Thomas Burlingame stayed in New York and his son, my 3rd great grandfather James Benjamin Burlingame moved to Lacon, Illinois between 1830 and 1840. 

James Burlingame and his wife Louisa May Todd both died in 1844 leaving 5 sons; one of which is my 2nd great grandfather James Burlingame. All the sons served in the Civil War and afterwards James and his family moved to northern Minnesota where my family resides today.

I have not been able to find any information that I can with reasonable certainty associate with Louisa May Todd. This is one of my biggest brick walls.

I have done extensive research on the Burlingame family and have published a family history book.

My grandfather Alonzo Roy Burlingame's mother was Olive Hammond and her father was Stephen Hammond and her mother was Cynthia Jane Walston. Stephen Hammond served in the Civil War.  I have been recently researching these two families to prepare for publishing a family history book.

The Hammond family is a very well documented family and my research goes back to the 1400's. My 10th great grandfather Thomas Hammond was born in England and resided in Massachusetts when he died in 1675. 

The Walston family can be traced back to the 1600's in England. My 7th great grandfather John Walston (1629-1693) was born in England and then immigrated to America, settling in Maryland. 

The Burr family sailed to America as part of the Winthrop Ships and arrived in 1630 as part of the Great Migration. Jehu Burr was the first founder of the Burr family in America. 

The Burr family is a well documented family. As time went by they associated with Burlingame family in Lacon, Illinois and traveled with them to Minnesota. My 2nd great grandfather James Burlingame married Jane Burr in 1866 in Lacon, Illinois. 

As the Burr and Burlingame family migrated, they went through Kansas, Ohio, Iowa, Arkansas and along the way several family members died from both families. The Burr family settled in Indiana and Kansas, while the Burlingame family continued to norther Minnesota.

This family has always had some mystery surrounding it. My grandmother Ellen Edith Sternberg's mother was Gertrude Andre. Gertrude was born in Germany and arrived in America with her cousin in 1913. The mystery is that she never spoke of why her family sent her to America; though she was sent to live with her uncle Frederich Andre in Nebraska. Her family was not poor and none of her other siblings immigrated to the America. She soon married Adolf Sternberg, so was it an arranged marriage?

Gertrude never spoke much about her family though she did write to them. She also told people had no family over here, when that is not true; she had several uncles that lived in Nebraska and South Dakota, we have photographs of her with them.

After years of research I was able to find birth and death documents for her siblings; some we never knew about. There are still some road block, but hopefully in the future we can knock those down.

Germany can sometimes be difficult to research as records were either destroyed or sent to other countries during the world wars. Some countries still possess these records but do not make them public. But more and more records are starting to be digitized making them easier to find.

Along with the Andre's the line of ancestors only goes back to the mid-1850's. The Sternberg name is very popular and so is the name Heinrich. My 2nd great grandfather  
Heinrich Christian Sternberg immigrated circa 1881. He was married for a short time to  Wilhelmina Louise Von Ahnen. After they divorced, Heinrich married my 2nd great grandmother Augusta Schaefer (there are several spelling to this name).

Augusta arrived in America in 1881 with her daughter Emma Schaefer who was a young child. She married Heinrich Sternberg in 1881.

In the 1900 census Augusta is alone with her children in South Dakota and it states she is widow. However, Heinrich Sternberg is not dead. He was listed in the Oregon census and likely abandoned his family. He died in Oregon never seeing his family again. The children were farmed out once Augusta died, and that is how her son, my great grandfather Adolf Sternberg met my great grandmother Gertrude Andre.

This is not a comprehensive list of everyone I've researched:

Beranek

Drewlow

Gleisner

Grosz

Hildebrandt

Holappa

Janke

Koskela

Kummala

Kusler

Larson

Mattila

Maunu

Moeller

Oelke

Oxford

Suvanto

Torma

Wright