I'm back at home after spending eight warm and sunny weeks in southern California (and thereabouts). Minnesota hasn't really experienced much winter up to this point, but I suppose the snow and cold will begin in earnest now that I'm home.

Today, stalling on laundry and other household tasks, I decided to take a new look at some old E-mails filed under "Genealogy". One message I'd filed away nearly three years ago had attachments. I must have looked at the photocopied letter and its transcription when I received the message in 2009. I'm sure I quickly lost interest when I saw the letter referred to a very, very distant branch of my family. It's a treasure, nonetheless.

The letter, written in (mostly legible) longhand, is dated March 21, 1880. The author is Simon Stahl, who was 68 years old and living in Rochester, Indiana, at the time he wrote the letter. While it's not evident to whom he was writing, the purpose of the letter is clear: "I thought I would send you the genealogy of both parents and grandparents, and who the great great grandparents (were)." He was probably summarizing entries from a family Bible, with details about three generations on both sides of his family.

From the many names and dates in the letter, I conclude Simon's paternal great-grandfather, Henry Stahl (1706-1790), would have been my g-g-g-g-g-grandfather.  The information Simon provided in the letter wasn't germane to my branch of the Stahl family tree, which is why I'd set it aside. But his comments are fascinating, particularly when viewed in his elegant script. Here's one memorable paragraph: "Not one of all these generations, as far as I know, was a poor person. Grandfather left over 1,000 acres of land to his children in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Not a drunkard, profane or illegitimate birth in any of the families. Nearly all died in a good old age." Don't we all wish one of our ancestors had left us such a letter?