My Paternal Line

When we had the Hansen Reunion in 1991 I knew next to nothing about my grandparents, but when we sent out invitations to the reunion, one second cousin who volunteered at a Family History Center sent us some group sheets she had on our family and some blank group sheets to send with the reunion packets. We sent them out and received 350 group sheets back, many were duplicates but I neglected to record who sent which group sheet, so while I have all 350 group sheets I do not have a source for the first 500 or so names in my genealogical database. Now I made a second blunder, I typed all the data from these group sheets into a program called the Enhanced Family Tree and printed out a book for everyone that came to the reunion and several that just ordered the book. The blunder was that the Enhanced Family Tree did not have GEDCOM. So later I got to retype all that data into a program that did have GEDCOM.
My Grandfather Anton Mikkel Hansen was born in Denmark the third son of Hans Mikkelsen and Karen Jorgensen. Anton and four of his brothers, Peter, John, Martin and Lawrence all came to the USA and settled in Austin, Minnesota. Except for John Hansen all came just before their 17th birthday. John had joined the merchant marine in Denmark and came after his service there. Four of the five Hansen brothers never left Minnesota, only my grandfather Anton left Minnesota and moved to Montana. My uncle said they moved to Montana because it was warmer.
Anton married Anna M. Dillingham daughter of Stanislaus Potoski Dillingham and Eliza Minerva Hellenbolt. The Dillingham's came to New England on the second Mayflower, and I found out a lot on the Dillingham's from the Book The Dillinghams of New England, and it looks like I will find a Mayflower ancestor, George Soule, and a Revolutionary War ancestor Enos Chandler, still have just circumstantial evidence on both of those ancestors. I also found out Anna had an aunt living in Montana before they moved from Minnesota so I think this is the reason they moved not because it was warmer.
You might have noticed part of my Blog name Mikkel and it comes from my grandfather Anton Mikkel Hansen, his father Hans MIKKELsen, and his father Mikkel Madsen, and my middle name Michael is the American version of Mikkel.