52 Ancestors Week 43 - Louis DeValkeneer


This weeks theme is "Oops" over on No Story Too Small. We have a funny family 'oops' story that involves my 2nd great uncle Louis DeValkeneer and the city of Pittsburgh. The story goes something like this:

After coming to America in 1910, Louis and his family were going to take a train to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but mistakenly got a ticket for Pittsburg, Kansas. Eventually they made their way back up to Pennsylvania to join the rest of the DeValkeneer family, which had all settled in a small town outside of Pittsburgh, PA.

This would just remain a funny family story, but then one day, while doing a general genealogy search for the name DeValkeneer (since almost everyone I've ever seen with the name is related to me) I came across something interesting. In the 1915 Kansas state census, in Crawford County, there is a listing for Louis De Valkeneer, his wife and 3 children. They live in Washington Township, which buts right next to Pittsburg, KS.

Maybe it's not just a silly story after all.

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