The life of Albert Ulysses Rupel came to an abrupt end five shorts days after a rusty nail penetrated his foot. Because of this unfortunate event, today, Albert’s name is little more than a footnote in the annals of aviation history.

In 1903, news of the Wright brother’s successful flight at Kitty Hawk reached rural Jay County, Indiana where Albert lived and worked. A year later, inspired by the success of the Wright brothers, Albert had built and tested his own version of a glider. Pulled behind both a car and a team of horses, Albert’s glider successfully cleared the treetops and landed safely in October of 1904. His brother, Ernest, wrote of the event in 1958.

At some point, Albert must have realized that a glider tethered to a car or horses was impractical. A proper glider needed its own source of power. Having successfully built engines that powered mechanical devices such as a washing machine and a churn, Albert set out the next year to add a gasoline-powered engine and propellers to his glider.

Fate, however, was unkind to Albert. Lockjaw, caused by the rusty nail, robbed him of the opportunity of ever seeing his new and improved glider take flight. His promising career ended August 21, 1905 when he died at the young age of 25.

It’s worth noting that Albert’s formal education ended at grade school as the small town where he grew up didn’t have enough students to justify the cost of a high school.

I’d like to think that somewhere hiding in my DNA rests a smidgeon of the same ingenuity trait that enabled Albert to achieve as much as he did at such a young age and without the benefit of an advanced education – even if it did only land him in the footnotes. I can say with certainty, however, that I’ll never step foot on a airplane again without thinking about my cousin Albert and what might have been.

Kenfolk: Utlauts
Relation: 5th cousin, 2x removed
Common ancestors: Albert’s 5th great grandparents, John and Ann (Jones) Chamness, are my 7th great grandparents

References:
Death Comes When Success Appears Near. (1905, August 21). The Indianapolis News, p. 1.
Henson, Z. (ed.) (1922). History and Genealogy of the American Descendants of John and Ann Chamness of London, England. n. p., pp. 40-41.
Rupel, E. (1958) Recollections of Albert Rupel’s “Flying Machine”. Indiana Magazine of History, 54 (4), pp. 391-394.
http://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/article/view/8650

When I came across the name of my distant cousin “Wathel” Rogers recorded in the 1920 census, I thought surely it had been transcribed incorrectly and was meant to have been “Walter”. I checked the photograph of the actual census from Kit Carson County, Colorado and found that it was not a mistake. Sometimes the names can be difficult to decipher but this was not the case.

In the1930 census “Wathel” became “Mathel”. I considered for a moment that “Wathel”, now “Mathel”, might have been “Martha” and that he was possibly a she. However, in the 1940 census “Mathel” returned to his former self as “Wathel”. Good grief. With low expectations, I turned to the Internet hoping to find evidence that “Wathel” was “Walter”. Perhaps someone had heard of him.

I quickly learned that “Wathel” was indeed “Wathel”. I also learned that a “Walter”, who was not “Wathel”, played an important role in his life.

The “Walter” was none other than Walter Elias Disney, better known as Walt Disney. Wathel Rogers was one of Disney’s “Imagineers”. In 1995, he was a recipient of the prestigious Disney Legends award. Wathel started as an animator with The Walt Disney Studios in 1939, lending his talents to such classics as Pinocchio, Bambi, and Alice in Wonderland to name but a few. He was also a gifted sculptor and inventor known for bringing inanimate objects to life. His legacy rests in his development of Disney’s Audio-Animatronics^®.

Wathel’s crowning achievement was the “robotic” yet very lifelike Abraham Lincoln, which debuted at the New York World’s Fair in 1964 in the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln attraction. In addition to lending his technical expertise, Wathel also lent his body. Mr. Lincoln’s prerecorded gestures and movements were Wathel’s as well.

Wathel passed away August 25, 2000. I read somewhere that people like finding presidents in their family trees along with Mayflower passengers, Civil War heroes and famous Native Americans. I’m counting this one.

Kenfolk: Utlauts
Relation: 3rd cousin, 2x removed
Common ancestors: Wathel’s 2nd great grandparents Calvin and Susannah (Rainey) Maxwell are my 4th great grandparents

References:
http://www.waltdisney.org/blog/look-closer-great-moments-mr-Lincoln
https://d23.com/wathel-rogers/

I came a step closer this week to knowing the names of all 32 of my 3rd great grandparents. It took a little digging but I’ve identified the names of #29 and #30. As far as I can tell, this is new information so I’ve accomplished my goal of picking up where my mother left off. (#31 and #32 may require a trip to Itawamba County, Mississippi, exhuming bodies, testing the DNA of local residents, etc.)

#29 and #30 are the parents of Sophia Friederike (Brundiek) Utlaut, one of my 2nd great grandmothers.

From my mother’s research I know that Sophia came to the U.S. in 1848. Immigration records seem to indicate that she traveled without any other family members. She would have been 15 years old at the time! In 1857, she married my 2nd great grandfather Rudolph Utlaut in Holstein, Missouri. Together they had seven children. Sophia had a sister, Elizabeth, who had also immigrated to the U.S. Her husband was Ernst Schomberg. Sophia died in 1877. Standardized death certificates filed with the local authorities had not yet been implemented in Missouri so there is no official record of her passing.

However, I was able to locate Elizabeth’s death certificate from 1913 filed under “Mrs. Elizabeth Schoenburg”. Elizabeth’s son-in-law, Fritz Poeppelmeyer, was the informant. Thankfully, he identified her parents as “Rudotph “Brundeik” and “Sopha Mind-something”. Close enough!

From there, I was able to determine from German records that Elizabeth was born “Maria Elisabeth Brundiek” on August 15, 1830, in Lienen, Westfalen, Prussia, to parents Heinrich Rudolph Brundiek (#29) and Catharine Marie Mindrup (#30). Elizabeth was baptized August 29, 1830.

Her sister and my 2nd great grandmother, Sophia, was born on February 2, 1833. Her name was recorded as “Friederike Wilhelmine Brundiek”. She was baptized February 17, 1833. “Sophia” might have been another middle name or a nickname shared by both mother and daughter. Given that German children often had two middle names, it’s also possible that “Sophia” was simply left off the birth and baptismal records.

A third sister, “Catharine Sophie Brundiek”, was born November 15, 1835. Unlike her two older sisters, it appears she stayed in Prussia and died there in 1917.

Mississippi here I come!

Kenfolk: Utlauts
Relation: 3rd great grandparents
Common ancestors: Presumably the Brundieks and Mindrups of Lienen, Westfalen, Prussia

If the Kansas City Athletics had not traded my mother’s first cousin Norm Siebern to the Baltimore Orioles in 1963, then the conversation I had about a month ago with my friend and coworker, Jon, would have been much less interesting.

Jon is a diehard Baltimore Orioles fan. His blood runs orange in the spring and summer and then Ravens purple when the leaves begin to change.

My mother loved all of her cousins but she was especially proud of Norm. I know this because when I met him I remember three things. First, he was a nice man. Second, he was tall. (I was a child back then.) Third, fearful I might say something moronic in front of him, my mother maintained a grip on my shoulder that would have been worthy of a rookie at bat facing a shutout juggernaut on the pitcher’s mound in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded and a count of three and two. (Sometimes I can’t help myself.)

When I got around to adding Norm to my family tree, I realized I could create a timeline of events in his life unlike any other. So I started researching his baseball career. When I learned he had played for the Baltimore Orioles, Jon was the first person I had to tell. He didn’t immediately recall Norm’s name but he politely played along as I excitedly explained how Norm and I were related.

The very next day Jon texted me a picture of Norm’s 1964 Baltimore Orioles baseball card that had been safely tucked away in his personal collection. I’ve attached it as evidence!

First baseman Jim Gentile wasn’t enough of a trade when Baltimore swapped him for Norm. They had to throw in another $25,000 to convince Kansas City to release him. I know nothing of the value of baseball cards but I think Jon should hang on to this one. Not that Jon would ever consider trading a Baltimore Oriole, mind you.

Kenfolk: Utlauts
Relation: 1st cousin, 1x removed
Common ancestors: Louis and Lula (Turner) Clark, Norm’s maternal grandparents and my great grandparents

References:
Orioles Swap Gentile to A’s. (1963, November 27). The Indiana Gazette, p. 16.

I learned early on from author Marsha Hoffman Rising that there is a difference between searching and researching. Genealogists should always search for research that’s been done by someone else. So far that’s proven to be very good advice. If the other researcher did their homework and it’s well documented, it’s much easier to verify the same information and you’re not starting from scratch.

I’ve grown accustomed to finding my mother’s “fingerprints” all over the Internet when searching for research about family members. Invariably, I’ll find a question or information she posted on a genealogy forum years ago about the same person I’m researching. Many times, she’s answered someone else’s question. I’ve even come across other researchers citing information she shared with them.

Case in point, just this week, I stumbled upon the Fiegenbaum family genealogical website searching for an Utlaut 2nd great grandmother. And there she was – Sophia Fredericka Brundieck – along with my mother, Norma Trantham, whose name appeared five times in the source citations.

Typically, I don’t learn anything new as I have most of mom’s work and I thought I’d done a thorough job of reviewing it. Not so. Mom had given this website’s owner a few tidbits of information I missed, revealing the names of a sister and brother-in-law I didn’t know existed.

Thanks, Mom.

Kenfolk: Utlauts
Relation: Mother
Common ancestors: Probably half of them

References:
Rising, M. H. (2011). The Family Tree Problem Solver: Tried-and-True Tactics for Tracing Elusive Ancestors (Rev. ed.). Cincinnati, OH: Family Tree Books.