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Edition:
September 02, 2010
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NEWS
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Wednesday, August 12, 2009
It seems as though almost everyone in Vergas really is related
Vergas man has over 2,000 people in his family tree
 | | Terry and Dennis Pausch look through a family history album searching for more details as daughter Joy Summers looks on. |
• by Jacqi Glenn
Third generation American Dennis Pausch is proud to be an American, proud of his German ancestry and proud to be from Vergas.
He's so proud of his heritage that he has been working on his family tree for over 10 years.
"I think I always had an interest that way, even as a kid," said Pausch. "Then as you get older, you understand the importance of it more, when you see your parents pass away and when you see your grandkids starting to grow and you have the desire to connect the two extremes."
So, he started with his family and what he knew, spending time with his aunt Evelyn Berger whose father immigrated to the Vergas area in the late 1800s. He gathers information from the obituaries, visits cemeteries and talks to as many people as he can. He has learned more than he planned about his family and the Vergas area.
"I think the most interesting thing I learned is that I'm related to Eddie Kroll," Pausch laughed. "Eddie Kroll lived in a shack next to the ball diamond and all the kids harassed him. We were kids. He was kind of the weird one in town or at least we kids thought so. Then I found out I'm actually related to him. He was a nephew to my mother's cousin."
Nephew to his mother's cousin? There's more, Pausch laughed as he recalled, "Like discovering my sister's daughter is her third cousin once removed?
"A light bulb came on. I just keep finding out oh, that's why so and so hung out with so and so. I saw a picture in Rodney's (Hanson) collection. It was a picture of my great-grandfather Peter Meyer with my Uncle Erv Klatts's dad. I could never figure out the relationship and then I found out that my great-grandfather actually married my uncle's aunt."
With all of his research, Pausch struggled with trying to remember all of the relationships. It's no wonder, with relations like nephew to his mother's cousin and a great grandfather married to his uncle's aunt.
That's why he turned to technology. Pausch uses software called Family Tree Maker made by Ancestry.com. The program allows him to enter names, dates and relationships and see how every name in the software is related.
"By putting it on the computer, it was so much easier to get that picture of how people are connected," explained Pausch. "I started with my family and what I knew and I would take my computer to family gatherings and ask questions and go see people and say, 'Hey, tell me all about your side of the family.' When I couldn't figure out how someone is related to someone, I'd call my Aunt Evelyn. The Otter Tail County history book also had a lot of information."
He's gathered over 2,000 names in 10 years.
What Pausch is doing is more than genealogy, it's family history. Genealogy is the study of a family lineage, family history is learning about the people in that lineage, finding their place in time and how they lived, putting personality to names.
Now, the unavoidable question, is everyone in Vergas really related? Pausch paused before answering. Then, he paraphrased Paul Pinke, "He's been here since 1980 and he said he'll never be from here, but his kids are because they were born here. . . . He's not from Vergas so he doesn't have to be related, but the people who are from Vergas are all probably related in some way."
The area is mostly a German settlement. Pausch explained, "Their cousins came, their nephews came, their uncle's brother came; you knew someone here so you came here. You have to remember, when they came here, they didn't speak English. You came to where you knew people, they spoke your language and they understood your culture."
Pausch noted that the Hanson's were probably the first Norwegians to come into this German community.
He said, "The thing that has fascinated me is, when you look at the genealogy, you realize that people that probably don't even know each other are related. Their great-grandparents came from Germany and settled here together because they were related and now their great grandchildren don't even know each other. Then, you start to see why they came here, why they settled in this area.
"If you look at our community, most of the people in our community are two maybe three generations from the old country. That's not very far. Those people left everything when they left, their family, everything they knew. Most of them never returned. They came to this country because of the opportunity it offered them.
"I have a lot of awe for these people. My great-grandparents left everything when they were 14 or 15 years old. They were seeking their fortune, not asking for government subsidies. That is a special breed of people and I think those genetics are still here. I think that's one of the reasons if you go out across the country, people want to hire people from the Midwest because of the work ethic. Our grandparents understood how people work, how this country really works. They passed that on to us and I hope we pass that on to our kids."
Pausch's family history has turned into a community history and he's not done yet. "There are a few family lines that I haven't filled out yet. I'm working the kinship of Peter Frederick Meyer, my great-grandfather. Andrew Brooker was the great-grand nephew of Peter's wife, so Sissy is a great-grand niece of my great-grandfather," Pausch paused as he gets lost in thought trying to recall the connection. "Also, Vera Chafee's mother was Emma Hartune and Emma Hartune's mother was Amelia Klatt, my uncle's aunt . . . so I'm trying to figure out how all that works."
Pausch is more than willing to share his files with anyone who has the software program and he'd love to chat with anyone who can help him fill in more information on the community history of Vergas and its residents.
Contact: Dennis Pausch 218-234-5996.
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