Thursday Treasures

Ehle Family Tree

My husband’s family line goes back into colonial New England on a few lines related to the Ehle family. His grandmother, Gertrude Evelyn Ehle, was born in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area in 1912. Her father was Charles Frederic Ehle. The Ehle family was proud of their heritage of Revolutionary War soldiers and the family line was written about most famously in Boyd Ehle in his book “Dominie John Jacob Ehle and his Descendants,” published in 1930.

Mr. Ehle’s book is fun and interesting to read. He adds some interesting stories and color to the ancestors that probably would have been lost without his publication. Over the years, some of his research conclusions have been disproved or corrected, but his work has value nonetheless. (A later work, and much more accurate, is Mack Dawson Duett’s “The Mohawk Valley Ehles and Allied Families,” published in 2003.)

The poster sized family tree that we have was related to the publication of Boyd Ehle’s book. It seems to have been done on a sort of architectural draft paper. A little note in the bottom corner states it was compiled in 1930 by Boyd Ehle. It was in the possession of Charles Frederic Ehle, who passed it down to his daughter Gertrude. Charles would have been a contemporary of Boyd Ehle and it is possible he requested a copy directly from Boyd Ehle.

Gramma kept the tree rolled up in a drawer in her dining room hutch. She would occasionally take it out and show it to interested family, but it remained in the drawer for many years. After Gramma passed away, we put the tree in a frame to straighten out the paper. The tree was becoming brittle with age and was beginning to crack when unrolled. Flattening the paper helped to preserve it for future generations.

A few years ago, we tried to find a local place where we could go to have copies made. There were no places who were able to copy a chart this large. Sending the tree away to be copied was not a reasonable option for us for fear of damage or loss of the original in transit. We hope to someday make a copy to hang in place of the original so that the original can be put in storage.