Maps, Plats, and Door Knocking

July 20^th, 2011 Wednesday

Today we started on the Milbank clan.  My maternal greatgrandmother was Regina Steffgen.  She was born in Dreis, Germany in Rhineland.  Her husband was Henri Wagner born in Berlin.  They homesteaded near Milbank in 1881.  By this time, we got a little smarter.  We had her obituary and it said she was in the Catholic cemetery, so we went to the information center to find out how to get a cemetery plot map.  She sent us to the Catholic Church who found it for us.  After hunting a bit we found her, Henri, Second husband Florian Roth, and her sister Rose Campbell.  Success!!!!!

Next we headed for the library and found more Atlases and Plat maps and figured out where the homestead was.  Our Garmin GPS didn’t get it quite right, but I met some nice people who sent us in the right direction.  We found the homestead almost by accident. 

House Heinrich Wagner Homestead

No one was home, but the house that was there had been transformed.  It was beautiful. 

The barn looked very old and had been sided with corrugated tin. There was another old house that looked like it had been converted into a grain bin.  

House and Shed Heinrich Wagner Homestead

Homestead Barn of Henry Wagner

We stopped at a house up the road and it turned out to belong to Dale Dornbush,  a grandson of Henri and Regina.  He wasn’t there, but his friend who lived with him said we had been at the right place.  Hurrah!!  More success. 

We left Milbank and headed for Sioux Falls and stopped along the way to see our old house in Brookings, SD. 

1808 Santee Trail ,Brookings

Cindy fixed us supper when we got here.  We will hit the cemetery here tomorrow and some of our old houses then head for Wisconsin on Friday.  

Foof