Axel Victor Nylen

Some Swedish guy posted a bunch of information on ancestry.com this summer--particularly interesting to me is the ancestry of Axel Victor Nylen (Rich's maternal great-grandpa). 

Axel's parents are listed as Jonas Nylen and Magdalena Charlotta Johansdotter (which I hadn't known before).  Here is a picture of their tombstone:

There are lots of other records posted with information about Axel and his parents and other ancestors, but everything is in Swedish.  And I don't know Swedish.  So, I've e-mailed the info to a friend and an uncle who can hopefully do some translation for me.  :)

Arthur Howard Nylen pictures

Today I found (on ancestry.com) some pictures of Col. Arthur Howard Nylen during his time as the commanding officer of a hospital during World War II.  (Arthur is Rich's maternal grandpa.)

Christopher & Elizabeth McKeown

Someone posted on findagrave.com the headstones of Christopher and Elizabeth McKeown at Reaves Cemetery in Middleton, TN.  They are Rich's great-grandparents and the parents to James McKeown.  There are Freemasonry symbols on the top of these headstones just like on James's.

C.C. McKeown
Born November 1848
Died June 25, 1907
Gone But Not Forgotten

 

Elizabeth
Wife of C.C. McKeown
Born Sept. 19, 1851
Died Feb. 10, 1928
Love's Last Tribute

1228 Pacific St.

I was looking at the 1915 NY state census record for Axel and Olena Nylen's family.  (Axel is Rich's great-grandfather.)

I saw that the address was clearly written on the side (1228--and then higher up on the page it lists the street as Pacific Street).  This is in Brooklyn (Kings County), New York, so I thought I'd google the address just to see if I found anything. It looks like that exact address is still there today:

Based on property information I can find online, it looks like this is the same as it was when the Nylens lived there.  (The building was built in 1905.)  This is an apartment building of some kind; you'll see on the census that there are several other families, roomers, servants, etc. living at the same address.

Things like this are just so interesting to me! It is just kind of fun to imagine the Nylen family living in that building.

Gravesite

Here is a picture of James Washington McKeown's headstone at the Reaves Cemetery in Middleton, TN.  (James is Rich's grandfather.)  As a sidenote, I figured out that that symbol on the top of the headstone is the symbol of the Freemasonry.  I guess James was a Mason?

Source: findagrave.com

Civil War

Today I found out that Christopher Columbus McKeown (Rich's great-grandfather) had two brothers who fought in the Civil War.  They were in company K in the Second Mississippi Infantry Regiment.  Christopher's brother Isaac (listed as a carpenter) joined in 1861 when he was 24 years old.  He was wounded and captured at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863.  He was taken to a Confederate hospital on July 5, 1863.  He then was taken to Point Lookout, MD and was paroled on August 16, 1863 and exchanged on March 3, 1864 and then returned to duty.  He was mortally wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness and died on the way to the hospital on May 8, 1864. After the Wilderness, he was chosen by his peers to be recognized on the Confederate Roll of Honor (for bravery and courage on the battlefield).

Another brother of Christopher's was James (listed as a farmer), who joined in 1862 when he was 20 years old.  He was mortally wounded at Gaines Mill on June 27, 1862 and died of his wounds at Richmond, VA on July 5, 1862.

Christopher was born in 1848, and the Civil War was over by 1865, so he was probably too young to be involved in the fighting of the war.

More information:
http://www.2ndmississippi.org
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/the-wilderness.html
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/gaines-mill.html

Rich look-alike

This might just be my imagination, but I feel like the guy on the far right in this picture kind of looks like Rich:

Source: ancestry.com

That guy isn't even really related to us.  Unless you count super distantly.  The old guy on the far left is Rev. William McKeown, a nephew of Rich's great-great grandfather Thomas McKeown.  (In other words, the reverend's father was Thomas McKeown's brother.)  And the guy on the right is Rev. McKeown's son.  So, that is too complicated for me to even try to calculate what kind of relationship that is to Rich.

But basically they're twins.

Afternote: After showing this picture to Connor and my mom, they both didn't seem to think it really looked like Rich very much.  So, maybe I'm the only one....If so, ignore this post.