Ancestors and Descendants

            Putting together a genealogy is like trying to herd cats. Amid screeching and many tufts of fur, the job would not get done without the assistance of others. Or perhaps I should say this job would not have ended. I ended this project after rounding up enough cats to move on. Here is how it happened.

            Late in 2006 I published an ancestral study of the Fritz, Groh, Waiss and Wiedman families that came together at my parent’s marriage, together with a brief history of the town where they married. New Light on Freistatt, Missouri: The Fritz, Groh, Waiss and Wiedman Family Legacies Meet (2006) should have turned me from genealogy, but rather it prompted my spouse Nancy Asher to ask, “When are you going to do my side?”

            “Any time you want,” I boasted without thinking. She called my bluff and you hold the result in your hands. This volume covers almost 1,000 individuals (992 at last count) and 652 families, with research from the 18^th to the 21^st century.

            Nancy’s mother is Margaret Elizabeth Seigel, and her father is Leslie Irving Asher. Researching the roots of Nancy, Carol and Martha Asher (sisters) resulted in four interwoven family studies that compose Part II (Asher), III (Seigel), IV (Wheaton) and VI (Rust and Hanson). Part V (Washburn) continues the ancestral background of Part IV.  In many cases biographical entries contain additional notes about the person cited.

            Part I includes almost two hundred pages of photographs arranged alphabetically by surname, with identifying captions. The Index includes the persons identified in the captions and directs the reader to other pertinent data in the book.

            In Part II, “Ancestors and Descendants of John Asher (b. 1833) and Margaret Asher (b. 1840),” the ancestral train transports the reader back to the earliest Ashers and their spouses and ancestors, and forward to the multiple descendants of John and Margaret Asher.

            “Ancestors and Descendants of Simon Seigel (d. 1909)” (Part III) starts with Margaret Elizabeth Seigel’s grandfather on her father’s side. Part IV, “Descendants of Thomas Wheaton,” reveals the ancestry of Margaret’s maternal side, while “Descendants of Samuel Washburn (b. about 1782)” (Part V) covers some of her other ancestors.

            Entitled “Ancestors and Descendants of Hans Olsen Rust (1806-1881) and Ingebjorg Colbjornsen (1813-1883),” Part VI reviews the history of Leslie Irving Asher’s maternal grandfather (Stengrim Rust Hanson) and his maternal grandmother (Gumbjor Knudson Rauk). Some people also included in Part VI are descendants of Hans Olsen Rust but do not stand in the Asher family line.

            Part VII includes recipes from the “Asher Cookbook” of the 1950s. Descendants in the William Leslie Asher family submitted their favorite recipes along with others from earlier family members.

            Most living descendants in this volume are American or Canadian citizens, but the ancestors of Nancy, Carol and Martha Asher made up a veritable United Nations. The Asher clan came from Scotland; the Seigels hailed from the Kingdom of Wuerttemberg in Germany with Elizabeth Jones, wife of Simon Seigel (d. 1909), immigrating from England; Hans Olsen Rust and his wife Ingebjorg Colbjornsen arrived from Norway; and the Wheaton and Andrew clans lived in the northeastern United States.

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