My great grand-aunt Mable and my great grandmother Nellie, taken about 1940 at the family farm in South Dakota.
Nellie Irene Torrence was born October 24, 1899 in Winthrop, Buchanan County, Iowa into a family of hard-working farmers. This webste is dedicated to her, her ancestors, and her many descendants.
The focus of Ancestors of Nellie Torrence are the family members of my mother's maternal grandmother, Nellie Irene Torrence. The families contained in this website have immigrated to America from England, Northern Ireland, Germany, and Holland, and all migrated westward from the original thirteen colonies to the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota, Missouri, Nebraska and more, as more generations grew to adulthood.
Nellie descends from a long line of hardworking pioneers, many who settled the American frontier. Nellie and Arend spent most of their lives farming near De Smet, Kingsbury County, South Dakota. This is the same town where Caroline "Ma" and Charles "Pa" Ingalls lived and died, who were the parents of writer Laura Ingalls Wilder.
I first became interested in genealogy when my great grandmother Nellie, or "Gram" passed away in July 1999. I always though she was of Dutch descent until I read her obituary. It stated her parents surnames, Torrence and Firth, which are clearly not Dutch names!
My cousin, Barb, introduced me to the family genealogy. She had gotten a start on it and I picked up where she left off. Barb is concentrating on the genealogy of Gram's husband, the late Arend Baker, who was an immigrant from Groningen, Holland.
Barb has done a wonderful website on the Baker family at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~bakkertree/ and it contains a lovely tribute to Nellie Torrence.
Many thanks to the many people who provided me with additional branches to the family three, and especially to K. Finley of Buchanan County, Iowa who typed up many newspaper clippings & obituaries and shared them with me, and for helping me straighten out my family tree in the early days of my research.
I must confess -- I was your typical genealogy beginniner once upon a time. During that time, I made many mistakes. I didn't include sources in my family file. I didn't have a solid filing system. I didn't give credit where credit was due. I didn't keep track of who said what. Etc etc. I have learned my lesson, and I ask for forgiveness. I have a long road ahead of me which involves sorting out my sources in my family file, which furnishes the Nellie Torrence family tree on Worldconnect.
