I’ve adapted Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge.
Each week I follow my children’s ahnentafel numbering to select the featured ancestor, ensuring no one through the mid–sixth generation is left behind.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2026 Week 38: A Document With Personality

James Felder, Almost

My Week 38 ancestor is James Felder.

This week’s theme is “A Document with Personality,” but I have a problem: I don’t actually have a document belonging to James Felder.

What I have are documents belonging to his daughter, Jennie.

Jennie’s marriage record identifies her father as James, with the family surname recorded as “Feltler.” Her death certificate gives her father’s name as James Felder.

And then there is her tombstone.

It identifies her as the “daughter of Mr. Avraham Yosef.”

Is Avraham Yosef the Hebrew name of the man who appears as James Felder in the civil records? It seems possible, but at this point I don’t have enough evidence to say so with confidence.

And that is about as far as I can responsibly take James’s story.

I don’t yet have a census record, vital record, probate file, immigration record, or other document that I can confidently attach to James himself. For now, I can see him only indirectly, through the records left by his daughter.

But even those few references have given me something important: two names to investigate instead of one.

So James—or perhaps Avraham Yosef—goes back onto my research list.

Sometimes an ancestor’s week arrives before his records do.

AI Disclosure

This post was created by me with the help of AI tools. While AI helps organize research, the storytelling and discoveries are my own.

Next Week’s Topic: What Wasn’t Written Down