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Discussion » Questions » History » Do you, or did any of your ancestors, have a direct connection to any noteworthy event that occurred in the year 1888? ~

Do you, or did any of your ancestors, have a direct connection to any noteworthy event that occurred in the year 1888? ~


  

Posted - April 21, 2018

Responses


  • 5835
    I think my grandfather was born around that date. G'g'father ran a little store in Louisiana and a boat or two on the Darbonne River, which doesn't even show on modern maps.

    What's significant about 1888?
      April 21, 2018 12:23 PM MDT
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  • 52903


      The number just randomly popped into my head, so I formed a question around it. (Would you be willing to believe that that's how many of my posts are born?)

      What's the significance of G'g'father?  Is it a typo, or it that how granddad was  referred to in your family?
    ~
      April 21, 2018 12:47 PM MDT
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  • 44173
    Great grandfather, I would imagine.
      April 21, 2018 1:00 PM MDT
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  • 5835
    It's an abbreviation for great grand father. It just randomly popped into my head.

    And why is abbreviation such a long word?
      April 22, 2018 6:04 AM MDT
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  • 6988
    My great grandparents brought their kids over from England to start a new life in farming. They tried in Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Missouri but failed in all states. You see, in those days, it was difficult to raise wheat that was needed to make bread. You had to have enough wheat to make it through winter. The wheat crop failed and there was no store down on the corner to sell you your bread making supplies. Eventually, someone discovered Russian Hard Red winter wheat about this time. It thrived in the wind blown prairies of America and Canada. Too late for my great grandparents, they had returned east and became housepainters.
      April 21, 2018 1:31 PM MDT
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  • 6477
    Unlikely
      April 21, 2018 1:33 PM MDT
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  • 44173
    My maternal grandmother lived in Nova Scotia during the "Great Blizzard of '88"
      April 21, 2018 1:34 PM MDT
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  • 22853
    Interesting!
      April 21, 2018 4:17 PM MDT
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  • 5835
    Well, FWIW, my g'g'father (that means "great grandfather) was Napoleon.

    That's Napoleon Jewels, not Napoleon Bonaparte.
      April 21, 2018 2:52 PM MDT
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  • 22853

    Not that I know of.
    But it would have been the last full year of life for about 2,200 people in Johnstown and neighboring communities in Pennsylvania, USA. (The great Johnstown Flood of 1889; it remains one of the worst natural disasters in USA's history.)

    Boy, I went off topic.
      April 21, 2018 4:16 PM MDT
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  • 52903

      Were your family members involved in that?
    ~
      April 22, 2018 5:07 AM MDT
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  • 22853
    No, thus making my answer inappropriate for your question I realize. I'm just very fascinated by the 1889 Flood and "your" year triggered "my" year.
    :)
      April 22, 2018 10:43 AM MDT
    0

  • 44173
    Twas not a natural disaster. Even though the rainfall was, of course, natural and excessive. It was  the Southfork Fishing and Hunting club that lowered the dam so it would be wide enough for their buggies, thus destabilizing it. 
      April 22, 2018 7:39 AM MDT
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  • 22853
    YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!! I didn't go into detail in my answer but I think the same thing! I just didn't feel like going into the fact (to me) that Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick and other members of the club caused the disaster. Besides lowering the dam, I believe there was also an engineer that warned them at least once that the dam needed to be stabilized.

    As sad as the tragedy is, your comment made my day.
    ;)

    I, indeed, mislabeled the disaster as "natural."
    That whole event has fascinated me my entire life for some reason. (Even at the young age of being in about ten when I saw the book by -- who? --  McCollough? was that his name? The one who wrote the most famous book on the event? At least, I think it's the most famous) I've traveled there numerous times and have read several books.

    P.S. I always wondered if it may have been partly due to a guilty conscience that Carnegie donated a library to Johnstown. This post was edited by WelbyQuentin at April 22, 2018 10:57 AM MDT
      April 22, 2018 10:42 AM MDT
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  • 44173
    I saw it in a documentary, then did further research. Carnegie and Frick were a**holes.
      April 22, 2018 10:48 AM MDT
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  • 22853
    I somehow goofed - - I kept writing my reply to you, posted it, and then immediately saw your comment here. I must have posted it without realizing it for you to have had time to write yours.
    Make sure you read everything I wrote in case. But it seems like you did, I guess. Sorry for going into hyper-drive there with all my words.
    :)
      April 22, 2018 10:51 AM MDT
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  • 44173
    I read everything that pops up in my notifications.
      April 22, 2018 10:56 AM MDT
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  • 22853
    Just wanted to make sure you had read everything in my first reply to you, in case I had posted it accidentally before I intended to post it. Not that everything I write is so dire - - it's just the I got excited when I read your first comment to my original answer.
    :)
      April 22, 2018 10:59 AM MDT
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  • 22853
    Yeah, that's one word for Frick and Carnegie that could apply in this case for sure.
    :)
      April 22, 2018 10:52 AM MDT
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