Every day, my Brooklyn genealogy adventure inches closer. The Google Map is primed and bristling. I have a color-coded schedule that would impress any cruise director. I no longer have to scroll down on the Asana calendar to see the dates—they’re right there, reminding me of what I haven’t gotten done yet.
Real and present life has required my attention, as always. I caught two colds and broke a dental crown, so it’s been a real fun time. My research has thus been a bit sidelined. But the good news is that I got an awful lot of planning done early, and the work now is all online. It’s been hours of internet searches, trying to scoop up every bit of digital info I can now, so that my in-person experience is as good as I can make it.
Subbing in for Weinpahl: Weinpahls
One result of all those searches: I’m starting to think that my great-great uncle Gus Weinpahl never played pro baseball in Brooklyn. I can’t find anything that supports the newspaper article that claimed he played for the Brooklyn Bridegrooms. I can only find mentions of semi-pro and club ball. Ah well.
However, the upside is that all those newspaper searches for him reminded me of all the other Weinpahl mentions I hadn’t spent a lot of time on: Legal notices.
My family kept their lawyers BUSY. This is a list of land transfers and other legal events involving the Weinpahls, over 8 years.
I already know that some of these records are in Albany or no longer available. But some others might be in Brooklyn. And putting these events in a timeline is helping me understand some things. I’d call that a win.
Swing and a Miss
Despite my efforts, the goal of finding experts to talk to is just not panning out. Cold calls are always going to be iffy; I get it. So I’m moving on from that goal. I will do as best I can to get as informed as I can some other way.
Next Up
Last night I talked out my in-person research strategy with my husband (ex-librarian). He helped me divide it:
Industry research (candy/baseball/alcohol); and
personal research (names of individuals and the associations/orgs they’re connected to).
So when I show up at a library or museum, my search can start from one of those two angles and expand from there. This should keep me from being overwhelmed, losing my place, and giving up and going to get a bagel.
(There will still be bagels. They’re on the map.) ☗
This past week I continued to make progress on the plans for my upcoming Brooklyn genealogy trip. As discussed, I’m treating this like a fact-finding mission or a business trip. I have so much I want to get done, so much to see and experience—being strategic is the only way to do that.
Hotel and flight have been pinned down. Bodegas and Italian bakeries have been added to my big Google map. And I’m going to try to squeeze in a photography exhibit. All the important stuff.
Wins!
Genealogists will tell you that only a fraction of records have been digitized. So in this before-trip time, I’m doing all the online database work I can, but also identifying what I should aim for when I’m on the ground in New York.
You can book a free half-hour online consultation, and one of their four genealogy librarians will walk you through their offerings. She was great about explaining their processes and setting expectations. While my specific surnames aren’t getting hits in their databases, she helped me find resources that may be useful for larger-context searches.
So in other words, I will definitely be going to the Ghostbusters library!
Reaching out to the Center for Brooklyn History got me a nice email answer and some helpful links. I will definitely follow up on those, as I expect to be spending a lot of time there.
As I had anticipated, finding experts to talk to about candy/baseball/alcohol is slow going. My cold-call emails are are getting nos in return or no responses at all. It’s a bit of a bummer, but I knew this might happen.
if I can’t find an expert to talk to, I can still get informed. I’m already learning about pre-Dodgers Brooklyn baseball… and starting to question whether my relative REALLY played for Ned Hanlon.
Planning the big genealogy trip that I’ve been talking about for years.
“The profession of “fact-finding“ is mostly encountered in companies where people are sent to investigate. … From an artistic point of view, fact finding is about working with first-hand experiences, not with references. The important thing to keep in mind is that the truth is not the ultimate goal in this process.” — Alex Bodea, operator of The Fact Finder art gallery
This spring we finally made it back to New York and Brooklyn. It was the first time my husband and I had managed to get there since 2019, with two cancelled attempts between then and now. It was far past time.
Unlike our previous trips, this time I planned no genealogy activities. I wanted this visit to be purely vacation. So no to archives, libraries, or spontaneous research sidetracks that erode people’s patience and time. Yes to museums and tea shops and bakeries. Yes to getting a slice, and a detour to Coney Island. Yes to an Italian restaurant that felt very much like being at someone’s house. Yes to a trip about life, not the dead.
We did visit a cemetery, but one without any of my people in it. It was fine.
And yet.
On our way to LaGuardia I caught sight of the old Domino Sugar factory, and thought wistfully again about Benjamin Huppler. My 3x great-grandfather, he was a Swiss confectioner who ran a candy shop in Brooklyn for many years.
As I’ve mentioned, Brooklyn is the core of my proudest genealogy work. The borough was home for two of my great-grandparents, and the nebula of family around them. I knew none of this history while I was growing up—but without any documented history, this branch has been mine to explore. From the one name I started with I now have generations. I have brought entire people back to light, even the smallest and the forgotten. And while I’ve been able to uncover a few things about Benjamin Huppler, it’s never been enough.
My great-great-great grandfather.
I found myself saying out loud the thing that I’ve said on every single visit: “I should just spend a week here, and just work on genealogy.”
This time my brain came back with: “You could DO THAT, you know?”
****
And my brain was right: I absolutely could. I’m lucky to have a generous vacation policy through my employer, so getting the time off is not a problem. I’ve traveled solo before. With some planning, the expenses could be managed. I can handle the MTA. The whole thing is entirely doable.
In the weeks since the idea crystallized, I’ve started to conceptualize what this trip might look like. I keep using that word for it, “conceptualize,” as if I were designing a jungle adventure for 100 people instead of a trip to archives and libraries for just one person, who is also me.
Seeing the sights, hitting the heights
I’ve also told people that it’s a fact-finding tour, which sounds impressive, like I’m carrying a briefcase and fixing a crisis.
But after reading that Bodea quote, it fits. I’m going in person because while online research can be amazing, it’s nothing like standing in the church your great-great grandparents attended. In person, I can have the first-hand experiences that shift genealogy from research into time travel.
****
The Plan as it Stands
People-Focused: There are three particular relatives I want to know more about.
3X great-grandfather Benjamin Huppler, the candymaker mentioned above.
Great-granduncle Gus Weinpahl. Semipro ball player in Brooklyn, Sayville, and Connecticut, from about 1895-1910. He later went on to run his own candy shop and then a café. I bet he had a time.
Gus
Gus’ father and my great-grandfather Justus Weinpahl. German immigrant, Civil War veteran. Buried at Green-Wood. He operated a liquor-dealing business (like a wholesaler) for almost 40 years. My hunch/hope has always been that this kind of business could have put him in connection with government officials and also less savory types (Brothels? Bars? Race tracks?).
Hence my theme: “Candy, Baseball, Alcohol.” Because doesn’t that sound fun?
If I can’t learn about these men specifically, I want to know more about their worlds. Ideally, I am hoping to connect with some experts in these histories. I want to hire them for an hour so I can ask questions and learn more.
Location-Focused: On a broader family level, I want to visit some of the spots around Brooklyn that might have more resources than I can access online. That would be places like the Othmer Library, the church that I mentioned, and other places I can identify ahead of time. (And this time, I’ll be making strategic visits to investigate specific research items—no fishing expeditions.)
I may also take a day to go back to Green-Wood Cemetery and hunt down some of the graves that eluded me on my previous visits. With enough time, maybe I could visit TWO cemeteries.
That’s the strategy, for now. It occurred to me just today that I could probably also squeeze in a trip to the New Jersey town where my grandparents met. No doubt the plans will continue to shift as the months roll on.
****
The one thing I can’t plan—and don’t like to think about much—is what happens when this trip is done. I can’t imagine being done with Brooklyn, but if this trip is meant to answer some of my longstanding Brooklyn questions, what comes after that?
I also know that there is a finite amount of facts and information out there for me to uncover. What if I’ve already found most of it?
Graveyard Snoop 