User:Kborland

My name is Kevin Borland (1975-), and I live in Arlington, Virginia. I was born January 20, 1975 in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Biographical Sketch
This user page is strictly dedicated to my genealogical research. Click here for my biographical sketch with links related to the other non-genealogy-related aspects of my life.

Ancestors
The following tree shows the first few generations of my ancestors, and also demonstrates my ethnic composition. The numbers 1 through 7 marked next to the ancestors below divide my ancestry into 7 distinct groups, which are explained below the tree. For convenience, these groups are referred to by their assigned numbers throughout this page.

Ancestor Tree

 * Kevin Borland (1975-)
 * Steven Thomas Borland (1950-)
 * John Earl Borland (1924-1986) #1
 * Helen Eloise Freudenberg (1928-1989)
 * Arthur Oscar Freudenberg (1891-1968)
 * Maximilian Sigmund Freudenberg (1858-1921) #2
 * Eloise Lindauer (1860-1935)
 * Charles Frederick Lindauer (1835-1921) #3
 * Anna Augusta Kershaw (1841-1931) #4
 * Maria Elisabeth Winblad (1895-1987) #5
 * Kathleen Szczesny (1949-)
 * Joseph John Szczesny (1920-1997) #6
 * Margaret Rice (1924-2007) #7

Ancestor Groups

 * 1) John Borland is best described, ethnically, as a descendant of a sprawling tree of Ohio pioneers and early Ohio settlers. John's ancestors are generally of Germanic descent (including Scottish, German, Dutch, English and Swiss nationalities), although a few apear to be of Celtic descent (including the Welsh nationality).
 * 2) Maximilian Freudenberg was an immigrant from Berlin, Germany to New York City. He arrived in New York in 1875.
 * 3) Charles Lindauer is the son of an immigrant family from Strausburg, Alsace-Lorraine. His parents came to America on their honeymoon.
 * 4) Anna Kershaw is the descendant of early Dutch immigrants to the New York City area. Her family traces back to the Dutch who came to New York when it was New Amsterdam.
 * 5) Maria Winblad is primarily of Nordic descent. Her mother and father immigrated to the United States together from Norway, although her distant ancestry includes connections to wealthy families in Scandanavia with roots outside of the region.  Most of the work in tracing this side of my family has been done by my cousin, Richard Arthur Norton.  Richard is my paternal grandmother's sister's son.
 * 6) Joseph Szczesny is of Slavic descent. I haven't been able to trace his ancestry back very far back yet, but so far, I have found that he descends from members of the Polish and Lemko ethnicities.
 * 7) Margaret Rice descends from a coal-mining family in Pennsylvania. All of her ancestors came to America from Lithuania, although some of them are not Lithuanian by ethnicity.  Her pedigree includes individuals of Lithuanian, Polish and German-Jewish ancestry.

Tracing my Ancestors Back to Europe
Of the seven groups listed above, all but two are traced completely back to Europe. Group #1 still has many loose ends that need considerable research and collaboration. However, Group #4 probably only needs to be traced back one generation further to connect to existing New Amsterdam Dutch genealogies which trace nearly all of the New Amsterdam Dutch settlers' families back to Holland.

Group #4 New York Research
Anna Augusta Kershaw has been found in the 1850 census of New York City, where she resided with her parents Abraham Kershaw and Sarah Olderen. A summary of the information from the 1850 census is as follows: Sarah's maiden name Olderen was provided on Anna's death certificate: The following assumptions regarding Anna's parents are believed to be true: Some possible avenues for discovering the names of Anna's grandparents include:
 * Both Abraham Kershaw and Sarah Olderen are believed to have been born in Nassau County, New York, near Glen Cove and Wolver Hollow.
 * The name Kershaw is believed to be an Americanization of the name Kashaw, which is believed to be an earlier Americanization of Cossart.
 * The name Olderen is believed to be an Americanization of the name Eldert. This is because Eldert appears to be the Nassau County Dutch name which is most similar to Olderen, and because at least one other Eldert family has a child they named Anna Augusta.  Also, Anna had a brother Israel, which is not a typical Kashaw given name.  There were, however, a number of men by the name of Israel Eldert in earlier generations.
 * Locating the mariage record between Abraham and Sarah in Nassau County
 * Reconstructing all of the Kashaw and Eldert households in the 1840 census of Nassau County and trying to account for all of the Kashaw men and Eldert women born between 1810 and 1820

Group #1 Ohio Research
By now, I have traced nearly all of the ancestral lines of John Earl Borland back prior to their migration to Ohio. A complete tree of John Borland's Ohio ancestors can be viewed by clicking here. There are, however, a few pieces of important data missing, and one loose branch. The missing information to complete the tree is as follows:
 * The parents of John's ancestor Harrison Miller are unknown. Harrison Miller was born in Harrison County, Ohio in 1818.  This is the most important missing link in John's Ohio genealogy, since Harrison's parents, and probably his grandparents, settled in Ohio.
 * The maiden name of John's ancestor Catharine, the wife of Ninean Walker, is presently unknown.
 * The given name of ? Welch, father of John's ancestor Hannah Welch, is presently unknown.
 * The maiden name of Margaret, mother of John's ancestor Hannah Welch, is presently unknown.

Groupe #1 Research (beyond Ohio)
John Earl Borland descends from 27 identified family lines whose members migrated to Ohio from other parts of the United States, and from Europe. (The total number is between 28 and 30, depending on how many of Harrison Miller's ancestors made their way to Ohio.) An inventory of these family lines needs to be taken in and placed in this section. The 27 family lines are marked in John Borland's Ohio ancestor tree.

Top-Priority Focus Areas of my Present Genealogical Research

 * Putting the basic skeleton of John Earl Borland's ancestor tree into Wiki format
 * Locating the mariage record of Abraham Kershaw (1815-?) and Sarah Olderon (1816-?) or reconstructing the 1840 Kashaw/Eldert families of Nassau County, New York
 * Determining the parents of Harrison Miller (1818-1894)
 * Compiling a list of the descendants of Benjamin Wheeler (1726-1807)
 * Taking an inventory by country and by time-period, of the research that needs to be done on my family lines in Europe, and creating sections on this page with goals and priorities

External Genealogical Contributions

 * Borland Family Tree (My family tree on Ancestry.com)
 * The Pioneers of Northeast Harrison County, Ohio (My genealogical research on Harrison County, Ohio)
 * Another Little Girl (My transcription and annotation the biography of my distant cousin Margaret E. Morrison)
 * Find a Grave Contributor: Kevin Borland (My contributions to Find a Grave)