Christian Winter has been on my radar screen for quite a while. I suspected we were related for the longest time but couldn’t quite connect the dots. Although he lived in Iowa, he frequently visited his cousins who lived in Warren County, Missouri. The people he visited, as reported in the Warrenton Banner, were cousins to my ancestors so there had to be connection. It did not help matters that his mother’s maiden name was also Winter. Had it not been for a flurry of research activities this weekend and a breakthrough finally, I might have been tempted to (snow)flake out. In the end, it turns out that he is indeed my 1st cousin, 4x removed and the nephew of my 3rd great grandmother, Dorothea (Winter) Biesemeyer. Perseverance paid off.

I refused to give up on him because Christian invented things in his spare time. He has a few patents to his name – things I recognized instantly when I saw them. One of them was a “new and improved” climbing harness used by linemen to shimmy up poles. His design was patented June 5, 1917. So, the next time you see someone using one of these things you’ll be thinking about Christian and thanking me for not giving up! Who knew?

I “borrowed” these images that I found on Google:

Kenfolk: Tranthams
Relation: 1st cousin, 4x removed
Common ancestors: Christian’s grandparents, Anton and Catharina (Bracht) Winter, are my 4th great grandparents