Christmas Came Early To My Genealogy Land

Christmas in Hadden genealogy land came a bit early this year thanks to a new cousin connection and a two-year old blog post. The gift that I received was a whole new branch of Ellen's family including approximately 200 new ancestors found so far.

The story of how this came about is quite simple and straight forward. In August 2010, I posted A Canadian Senator in the Family describing Ellen's connection to the Hon. Samuel Merner who was appointed to the Canadian Senate in 1887 on the advice of Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada's first Prime Minister. Samuel Merner served as a Senator until his death in 1908.

In October of this year, a comment was left on the blog post about Samuel Merner by Fraser Laschinger who indicated that he was also descended from the same Merner family line. Fraser is an historian and serves on his local historical society board and as turns out, he is Ellen's fourth cousin. In emails subsequent to receiving his comment, he indicated that he had some genealogical information, compiled over the years by some family members, which he has graciously sent to me. One of his documents stated that Anna Merner (the name can also be found spelled Muerner, likely it's original Swiss spelling) "married a Staebler" but offered no other reference to who the identity of the Staebler nor anything further about that family. 


Anna Merner is Ellen's 2X great grandmother and she was one of Samuel's younger sisters. Fraser 2X great grandmother, Mary, was another of Samuel's younger sisters. All were the children of Jacob Emanuel Muerner and Susanna Schluchter. Anna (Muerner) Merner married Jacob Staebler around 1840. Jacob and Anna Staebler youngest daughter Mary is Ellen's great grandmother.

The key to unlocking the new branch of Ellen's family tree was the information that Fraser offered in his posted comment, "Mary [Merner] married Joseph Laschinger ...." I didn't have that information and although I have yet to find a marriage record for Joseph and Mary, I have found many records listing them as living together and being the parents of a dozen children. 

Exploring the Merner - Laschinger branch has added, as stated earlier, about 200 more individuals to my genealogy database, and all sources have been cited. The 'new to me' Laschinger family line has discovering connections with Edmund H. Laschinger, a prominent Canadian government figure in the early 20th century, along with Russell Howard Laschinger, a prominent newspaper publisher in Gilmer, Texas along with his daughter, Sarah Jane (Laschinger) Greene who, in 2010, was inducted into the Texas Newspaper Foundation Hall of Fame.

A great early Christmas gift for a genealogist. Now if Santa could only find a photo of my great grandfather John Foley!