I apologize for the long time since writing. I've had a lot going on in my personal life, such as graduating from UW-Madison and beginning graduate studies at the University of Georgia. Between my time at school I had the entire spring and summer off. I used that time for a great deal of genealogical research.
I have put a lot of effort into fleshing out many of my family lines. Many of them were skeletons and some on my dad's side didn't have much detail. I've spent quite a deal of time finding out more info on each of these.
In particular I took the large and ever growing Stark family by the horns. You my remember that on my grandpa's side, I had two different Stark lines, one on his mother's side and one on his father's side. I had long suspected that the two giant lines were related, given that they were from the same area around Oak Creek, etc. I just had lacked an ability to connect them.
Then I heard from a researcher who had been investigating the families for quite some time. He was able to help me connect the two lines. My furthest back ancestor in one line, Mathias (b. 1826) shared the same father as my ancestor in the other line, John (b. 1810), Peter Stark (1785-1835).John was the son of Peter and his first wife, Elizabeth Thiel. She died in 1813. Mathias was the son of Peter and his second wife Anna Muellen (yes, as far as can be told on records it is MuelleN not MuelleR).
It was extremely exciting to make that breakthrough. I additionally found out more information on Johann's son John Henry Stark. My initial research hadn't turned up much info because he disappeared from the Milwaukee area and I wasn't able to distinctly link him in other areas. Also with the help of PJ Starck I was able to find out that he in fact moved to the Madison area. While I was still living in Madison, I was able to locate his and his wives' graves as well as some of his children. Interestingly his daughter Helena married William Schulkamp, brother of Gerhard Schulkamp who was married to a Diebold on my mother's side. It is funny to see these connections that exist now years after the fact.
During our annual cemetery trip up north during April/May of this year, we stopped at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Appleton. Digging more into the Mathias Stark family I had discovered that there were more Starks and other related families buried there than I had initially thought. We did a somewhat thorough once-over of the main older sections of the cemetery and found quite a few Starks and related names.
This helped illuminate the differences in Nickolas Stark (son of Johann b. 1810) and his line, from the descendants of Mathias Stark (b. 1826) who also moved to the Appleton area at the same time. It also brought to light a list of "unknowns;" people who were buried in Stark plots that I wasn't able to identify initially, and people who have the surname Stark and don't seem to fit into the known lines that I have researched. So, over the past few months I have been slowly working on this list as well.
Even MORE on the Starks (is you head spinning yet?) : I recently was contacted by a woman who received an OLD photo album from a descendant of Appalonia Starck Hauerwas (through Elizabeth Hauerwas Dreger), daughter of Johann Stark (b. 1810) and Helena Mick. The descendant wanted to see if anyone could help identify the people in them. I don't know much about the family so not much progress has been made yet. If anyone reading this is interested in seeing the photos, please do contact me and I would be happy to show you some of what I have received thus far.
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As for other work....
I was contacted earlier this year by a descendant of Lula Sarah Beaulieu, daughter of Sarah E. Mayville and Martin Luther Beaulieu. This was extremely awesome. I have spent so much time trying to track down all of their kids, and it has been nearly impossible due to the amount of variance of the spelling of "Beaulieu." Well, did Abby have a story for me. In the 1910 census for Sarah and Luther, included with their children is listed a "daughter" named Hilda who was born around 1906.
I'd never thought anything of it, really, but Abby informed me that Hilda was not actually their daughter, but their granddaughter. It turns out Lula Sarah Beaulieu had eloped with the son of a wealthy family in the Wrightstown area (they were involved in the steel industry or some other similar trade). This family was one whom Sarah Mayville Beaulieu worked for in their house. The families discovered this and forbade the marriage, essentially forcing them to annul it. However, it was a little too late - Lula was pregnant with a daughter, Hilda.
The name of Lula's lover is not known because the family had his name stricken from any known family documents and from Hilda's birth record. Her family never told her who her father was. Lula went on to marry two other men and have a couple more daughters. Now Abby is facing the task of tracking down who this man was. It will take a lot of work but I believe it is possible if we can find out where they eloped to and all that jazz. It seems unlikely that annulment papers would have the names erased of the individuals involved, so that may be a good place to start as well. It'll be interesting to see how this develops. I am hoping that by finding out more about this line I can find out more about Sarah Mayville. I would like to finally find her and Martin's final resting place.
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I made a breakthrough in one of my many mysteries involving the McConnell family. The 1870 census for Alexander McConnell living in Jefferson, WI, had a mystery little girl listed after other family, "Flora Bourne" but there was no detail on who she was or what her relationship to Alex was. In the 1880 census for Alex's household, again in Jefferson, she was listed simply as Flora McConnell. Ever since first seeing those census records I had wondered who this Flora Bourne was and why she was living with the family.
Then I stumbled on something while searching for one of the McConnells. A family tree I ran across stated that Alex's daughter Margaret had been married. Something I never knew before. When I looked through Rock River Cemetery several years ago I had found a stone for Margaret, just stating her name as Margaret McConnell, and having died 7 Oct 1866. What the tree I found suggested was that she had married Chardon Bourne on 5 Aug 1865 while she and her family were living in the vicinity of Winona, Minnesota, during the mid-1860's. Further, the couple had a daughter, Flora Bourne, who was born 14 Jul 1866, several months before Margaret died.
This was exciting. But I had to make sure this was correct, first. Was it plausible that the Margaret McConnell married to Chardon was the Margaret McConnell of my family? In the 1865 Minnesota State Census, the Bournes and McConnells are practically neighbors. That is a plus sign. Looking into more documents and records (a newspaper article from 1908 states "Chardon Bourne, who has lived here in Witoka for over fifty years, writes a Witoka resident, is going to Merrill, Wis., to visit a daughter or as he puts it, 'to see his baby whom he has not seen since she was five months old, and who is now the mother of ten children.'"
This seems to add up with the time period here. If Flora was born in July and Margaret died in October, with her parents soon after taking over raising the child back in Jefferson, WI, then the time period would mesh as about 3-5 months of age of his daughter when he had last seen her.
Other records, such as Flora's marriage record and children's birth records seem to add up. I'd like to get ahold of Flora's death record to make 100% sure, so I probably will check it next time I'm back home in Madison. Amazing what mysteries can be solved after a few years of persistence.
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I have been spending increasing amounts of time on findagrave.com Most recently I completed a photo/transcription of St Mary of the Lake cemetery out in Westport, WI (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&GRid=23506620&CRid=2144268&). I have quite a few relatives buried there and found a few more through the process of the transcription. It is always nice to have a little more info that might help in making a breakthrough. This Irish line is going to be a tough one to break.
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I've also spent a lot of time working on finding the burial location of Corbet Tarbell as well as his wives and all of his children. I made a lot of progress with the help of several researchers in the Londonderry and Chester, VT areas. Corbet and his second wife Nancy are buried in Riverside Cemetery in Londonderry, but I have been unable to find the burial location of his first wife, my ancestor, Amy Thompson Tarbell. I am still searching and hoping to find more information. I've also had trouble finding the burial locations of the three known children Corbet had with Nancy.
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Similarly I made a goal of finding the burial places of all of Betsey Davis and Hiram Greeley 's known children. I finally did succeed in that, and through this research I have been able to flesh out my family lines a little further. Also with the Greeleys I spoke to a descendant of Leah Greeley Mills, which was really nice. She had kept in contact with my great-grandparents for her life, despite living out west, so it was nice to reconnect to that line after all these years.
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I recently paid a researcher in Germany to hopefully provide more information on the Brandmueller, Hoeninger, and related families in Bavaria. I am looking forward to seeing what will turn up on this second round.
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I have also renewed efforts to locate the birth record of Simon Walter. Church records in Wisconsin indicate he was born in Neubeuren by Weisenbach. So far the Archivs I have spoken to have not been able to locate such a place. I have been referred from place to place and hope to soon find someone who can help me figure out this mystery.
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Back in June I made contact with an Annen descendant who sent me a few pictures. One of them is believed to contain Peter Annen, my immigrant ancestor in that line, who I had never seen a picture of before! This was great!
Well, I think my work has been pretty well updated now. I have of course been doing many other, smaller things on the side, as well as started a project involving Resurrection Cemetery in Madison. I'll leave it at this, for now, though!!
Showing posts with label Heninger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Heninger. Show all posts
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Strasser Mystery solved; more German info
My last post, quite some time ago, concluded with my about to embark on searching German church records by hand. That search only opened up new mysteries to me. The records were difficult to read at times, and all in German. The German was relatively straightforward to understand, however, so I did not have trouble. They also had a booklet that a few church ladies had put together translating some of the records.
These records were, however, fantastic in that they provided birth places in Germany for my ancestors. Simon Walter was listed as being born in Neubeuren bei Wiesenfeld. His wife, Margaretha, was a different story. She was listed intermittently as either a Strasser or Kuernlein // Kaemmlein by birth. The church records shed no light on these because they ALSO alternated between listing two two names. Sometimes her children's records said one thing, and then her own death record said another. Was Simon married to two women named Margaretha? In the cemetery records there was also a listing of an Eva Elisabetha Strasser, whose maiden name was Kuernlein, born 14 Sept 1805 in Weisenbach. She had a husband listed as Johann Michael Strasser, only his birth year was 1822 and he had been born someplace called Schnelldorf. Margaretha herself was born 2 Jan 1827, also in Weisenbach.
How were these three related?? The church records were infuriating. I had them all laid out in front of me in the basement of the church and they just kept leading me in circles without providing information on how exactly these three were related. They had to be. They were from the same tiny town in Germany. They had the same names. They had similar generations (1822/1827, and then the older generation line at 1805). Were johann and Margaretha siblings? What was going on?
I photographed every record and came home, still studying the same information and still baffled. I searched the internet for the town name "Weisenbach by Wuerttemburg" as it had been listed on the records. I determined that the town I was looking for was in Schwaebisch Hall region of Stuttgart, Wurttemburg state. There was even a road between Weisenbach and Schnelldorf, explaining how the Strasser and Kaemmlein families had met.
Because I was now armed with the proper locales and exact birth dates (thank you, St Johns in Oak Creek!) I could now attempt to find records in Germany. Luckily records existed. They let me know that Margaretha, wife of Simon Walter was a Kaemmlein by birth. Her mother was, Eva Elisabetha Kaemmlein, who had Margaretha illegitimately and therefore Margaretha had her mother's maiden name. The father may be listed on the record but it is incredibly hard to read on the scan they sent me in the mail.
Apparently, Eva Kaemmlein married Johann Michael Kaemmlein, only 5 years older than her illegitimate daughter, and came to America with him in 1852. I do not know more about the marriage of Eva and Johann Michael, but at least I do know the proper relationships between these three.
From this info I was able to find more info on the Kaemmlein family. Eva's parents were Johann George Kaemmlein and Anna Barbara Ballbach.
I can't afford to find more information at this time but I'm satisfied with having learned what I did so far.
More family research in German records:
I also acquired the birthdates of George Brandmueller and Johanna Hoeninger. Georg was born 12 Aug 1824 in Steudach, Erlangen-Büchenbach, Mittelfranken, Bavaria. His parents were Adam Brandmueller and Anna Neidhardt. I have found the Brandmueller line back to the mid 1700s now! Can you believe it?
Johanna Hoeninger was born 16 Sep 1824 in Buechenbach to Johann Michael Hoeninger (I had wondered as her sons had this name) and Barbara Rudelt. Barbara was an illegitimate child of Conrad Petsch and Catharina Rudelt. She is alternately listed by either surname in various records.
I have slowly been acquiring more info on the Grass families also. More to come when I can afford the research!!
These records were, however, fantastic in that they provided birth places in Germany for my ancestors. Simon Walter was listed as being born in Neubeuren bei Wiesenfeld. His wife, Margaretha, was a different story. She was listed intermittently as either a Strasser or Kuernlein // Kaemmlein by birth. The church records shed no light on these because they ALSO alternated between listing two two names. Sometimes her children's records said one thing, and then her own death record said another. Was Simon married to two women named Margaretha? In the cemetery records there was also a listing of an Eva Elisabetha Strasser, whose maiden name was Kuernlein, born 14 Sept 1805 in Weisenbach. She had a husband listed as Johann Michael Strasser, only his birth year was 1822 and he had been born someplace called Schnelldorf. Margaretha herself was born 2 Jan 1827, also in Weisenbach.
How were these three related?? The church records were infuriating. I had them all laid out in front of me in the basement of the church and they just kept leading me in circles without providing information on how exactly these three were related. They had to be. They were from the same tiny town in Germany. They had the same names. They had similar generations (1822/1827, and then the older generation line at 1805). Were johann and Margaretha siblings? What was going on?
I photographed every record and came home, still studying the same information and still baffled. I searched the internet for the town name "Weisenbach by Wuerttemburg" as it had been listed on the records. I determined that the town I was looking for was in Schwaebisch Hall region of Stuttgart, Wurttemburg state. There was even a road between Weisenbach and Schnelldorf, explaining how the Strasser and Kaemmlein families had met.
Because I was now armed with the proper locales and exact birth dates (thank you, St Johns in Oak Creek!) I could now attempt to find records in Germany. Luckily records existed. They let me know that Margaretha, wife of Simon Walter was a Kaemmlein by birth. Her mother was, Eva Elisabetha Kaemmlein, who had Margaretha illegitimately and therefore Margaretha had her mother's maiden name. The father may be listed on the record but it is incredibly hard to read on the scan they sent me in the mail.
Apparently, Eva Kaemmlein married Johann Michael Kaemmlein, only 5 years older than her illegitimate daughter, and came to America with him in 1852. I do not know more about the marriage of Eva and Johann Michael, but at least I do know the proper relationships between these three.
From this info I was able to find more info on the Kaemmlein family. Eva's parents were Johann George Kaemmlein and Anna Barbara Ballbach.
I can't afford to find more information at this time but I'm satisfied with having learned what I did so far.
More family research in German records:
I also acquired the birthdates of George Brandmueller and Johanna Hoeninger. Georg was born 12 Aug 1824 in Steudach, Erlangen-Büchenbach, Mittelfranken, Bavaria. His parents were Adam Brandmueller and Anna Neidhardt. I have found the Brandmueller line back to the mid 1700s now! Can you believe it?
Johanna Hoeninger was born 16 Sep 1824 in Buechenbach to Johann Michael Hoeninger (I had wondered as her sons had this name) and Barbara Rudelt. Barbara was an illegitimate child of Conrad Petsch and Catharina Rudelt. She is alternately listed by either surname in various records.
I have slowly been acquiring more info on the Grass families also. More to come when I can afford the research!!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
German update; new Christofferson info, much more.
Quite a lot of time has passed since I last took the time to write here, but I have been still working on a variety of things.
I recently undertook the monumental task of trying to track down records in Germany for all of my German ancestors. This hasn't been easy, because for many of my ancestors I still do not know a town name of origination. That means finding records is next to impossible. For others, I have pretty good information so I have been able to make some contacts and find out a little more information.
One such is the family of Lawrence Grass. I knew his daughter Adelheid Grass Diebold had been born in "Kerpen bei Koeln" i.e. the town of Kerpen near Cologne. Kerpen has an archive located in their town and a very helpful archivist there has been able to help me find the birth records of Adelheid and Lorenz, as well as the marriage record of Lorenz Grass to Anna Maria Lapper. From these documents I found a new generation: Lorenz Grass's parents were Aegidius Grass (! what a name) and Maria Catherina Ahrens. Anna Maria Lapper's mother was listed on the marriage record as "Maria Anna Lapper" and no father was listed.
They were also able to find a registry for the marriage of Maria Ahrens and Aegidius Grass, as well as a listing of all of their children baptized.
I also contacted a variety of places in central Bavaria, to try to track down exactly where the Brandmueller and Hoenninger/Hönninger/Heninger families were from. I had received information from Baltimore church records that the Brandmueller family came from Steudach, Bavaria, while the Hönningers came from Buechenbach. An archive in Bamberg was able to locate Hönninger records for me, in Mittelfranken, but the unfortunate part of the story is that it costs 60 euro per HOUR for research to be conducted at the archives. That has put my search there on hold as I cannot afford that at all.
I am still hoping to track down more German records as time and money allows.
Closer to home, I have been able to figure out a couple of mysteries lately and I am really quite pleased if these fully pan out as I hope they will. The first was that of the Christoffersons, my uncle's family. For a while I have been stuck on Carl Christofferson's parents. He was born at an awkward time just before the 1880 census, but then was old enough that by the 1900 census he was living on his own and therefore not connected to any parents. I could not for the life of me figure out where he was on the 1880 census although I knew it had to be in Blooming Grove. Multiple records indicated he was born in Blooming Grove, and he was born, as I said, not long before the 1880 census.
Well I decided to plug in the information I knew into ancestry.com again (thanks to my cousin who shares her account with me from time to time!!), because I'm a sucker for staring at the same information over and over that doesn't belong to my family. Haha. Kidding. This time I did a specific search for 1880 in Blooming Grove (instead of Wisconsin as a whole) and came up with a Charles Christofferson b. ca. 1875, living with parents Hans Peter Christofferson and Kari Endresdatter. Of course, Carl and Charles are pretty damn similar, and this is THE only Christofferson family I could find in Blooming Grove in 1880.
This family also listed an Andrew Christofferson as this Charles's brother. Mattie Hanson, sister of Tena Hanson (who married Carl Christofferson) had married an Andrew Christofferson. I thought this was a little too much of a coincidence.
I then looked at the public family trees on ancestry, which I don't think I had done for this family, and all of the trees confirmed what that census told me, with exact dates for the siblings. One tree even had a picture of all five siblings and I'm fairly certain the man labeled Carl in the photo resembles my uncle and his relatives. This was extremely pleasing because I was able to find Hans and Kari's death certificates and marriage records which indicated birth and death dates of course as well as parents' names. Hans Christofferson is the son of Christian Amundson and Barbara Hansdatter. Kari Andresdatter is the daughter of Andrew (Endre) Knudson and Barbra Halversdatter. I'm pretty excited because this just gave me a big step forward by finding the immigrant ancestors for my uncle Eric!
My next mystery solved was Simon Walter, my own immigrant ancestor on my grandpa's biological father's side. I had been able to find him in the census from 1855 to 1880 in Wisconsin but had not found him after that, nor in any immigration records. From all I could find, he was born around 1806-1810 and I didn't know when he died. One unique finding was the 1880 census had a column where the enumerator could list diseases or illnesses the person was suffering. I've never seen anything listed there before. But for Simon Walter, it said he was suffering from "Bilious Fever." I don't know much of what that means in today's terms but I assumed it was relatively serious, especially for a man around 70 years old.
The other day I was scanning find-a-grave to see if I could find anything new on a variety of lines. I searched for the surname "Walter" in Milwaukee County. The first hit that caught my eye was a memorial for a John Walter, b. Sep 28 1853. This was very interesting to me as this was the son of Simon Walter, and the brother of my ancestor Fred Walter. Then I looked at who else was in the cemetery, the "Independent Cemetery" in Oak Creek: a Katherina Walter and a SIMON WALTER. Almost lost my mind with excitement. Checked into it a little more, the dates for Katherine also fit with what I had for John's first wife (Katherina Baum). And, the Simon Walter was listed as born 12 Apr 1810 and died 7 Nov 1880. Death in 1880, not long after that 1880 census that stated he was ill with something that sounded nasty? Hmm.
My next step was figuring out what this whole "Independent Cemetery" business was about - it didn't seem to have anything online about it or any religious affiliations. So I asked someone (Nancy Honadel) at the Oak Creek Historical Society that I had gotten help from previously on some Catholic ancestors in the area who was able to help me track down that this was a combination of a cemetery for something called the Independent Cemetery, and then for St. John's Lutheran Church. She had a list of burials for St. John's which included not only John, Katherine, and Simon, but also a "Lena" died 1878 and a Margaretha died 1892.
I'm VERY interested in these as Simon had at least one wife named Magdalena/Margaretha. All of the children's birth records submitted in the 1860s state that their mother was a Margaretha Kuernlein (never really figured out how to read that name). However, half of the death recs I have found have listed their mother as a M. Strasser. Kind of very different from Kuernlein or any variation of THAT name. My latest idea on that front is that there were two different women that Simon married, and one may be responsible for some of children, and the other the rest. Needless to say I am chomping at the bit to solve that mystery.
Lucky me, I got in touch with a Pastor at this church, still standing, next door to the cemetery, and he is allowing me to come search the church documents in person this Friday. Am I excited? Yes. The only qualms I have were he mentioned sticking me in the basement with all the records. Sounds quite daunting. So we'll see what comes of that. I am very much looking forward to the opportunity to look into these records firsthand.
I'll try to update this a little more frequently!
I recently undertook the monumental task of trying to track down records in Germany for all of my German ancestors. This hasn't been easy, because for many of my ancestors I still do not know a town name of origination. That means finding records is next to impossible. For others, I have pretty good information so I have been able to make some contacts and find out a little more information.
One such is the family of Lawrence Grass. I knew his daughter Adelheid Grass Diebold had been born in "Kerpen bei Koeln" i.e. the town of Kerpen near Cologne. Kerpen has an archive located in their town and a very helpful archivist there has been able to help me find the birth records of Adelheid and Lorenz, as well as the marriage record of Lorenz Grass to Anna Maria Lapper. From these documents I found a new generation: Lorenz Grass's parents were Aegidius Grass (! what a name) and Maria Catherina Ahrens. Anna Maria Lapper's mother was listed on the marriage record as "Maria Anna Lapper" and no father was listed.
They were also able to find a registry for the marriage of Maria Ahrens and Aegidius Grass, as well as a listing of all of their children baptized.
I also contacted a variety of places in central Bavaria, to try to track down exactly where the Brandmueller and Hoenninger/Hönninger/Heninger families were from. I had received information from Baltimore church records that the Brandmueller family came from Steudach, Bavaria, while the Hönningers came from Buechenbach. An archive in Bamberg was able to locate Hönninger records for me, in Mittelfranken, but the unfortunate part of the story is that it costs 60 euro per HOUR for research to be conducted at the archives. That has put my search there on hold as I cannot afford that at all.
I am still hoping to track down more German records as time and money allows.
Closer to home, I have been able to figure out a couple of mysteries lately and I am really quite pleased if these fully pan out as I hope they will. The first was that of the Christoffersons, my uncle's family. For a while I have been stuck on Carl Christofferson's parents. He was born at an awkward time just before the 1880 census, but then was old enough that by the 1900 census he was living on his own and therefore not connected to any parents. I could not for the life of me figure out where he was on the 1880 census although I knew it had to be in Blooming Grove. Multiple records indicated he was born in Blooming Grove, and he was born, as I said, not long before the 1880 census.
Well I decided to plug in the information I knew into ancestry.com again (thanks to my cousin who shares her account with me from time to time!!), because I'm a sucker for staring at the same information over and over that doesn't belong to my family. Haha. Kidding. This time I did a specific search for 1880 in Blooming Grove (instead of Wisconsin as a whole) and came up with a Charles Christofferson b. ca. 1875, living with parents Hans Peter Christofferson and Kari Endresdatter. Of course, Carl and Charles are pretty damn similar, and this is THE only Christofferson family I could find in Blooming Grove in 1880.
This family also listed an Andrew Christofferson as this Charles's brother. Mattie Hanson, sister of Tena Hanson (who married Carl Christofferson) had married an Andrew Christofferson. I thought this was a little too much of a coincidence.
I then looked at the public family trees on ancestry, which I don't think I had done for this family, and all of the trees confirmed what that census told me, with exact dates for the siblings. One tree even had a picture of all five siblings and I'm fairly certain the man labeled Carl in the photo resembles my uncle and his relatives. This was extremely pleasing because I was able to find Hans and Kari's death certificates and marriage records which indicated birth and death dates of course as well as parents' names. Hans Christofferson is the son of Christian Amundson and Barbara Hansdatter. Kari Andresdatter is the daughter of Andrew (Endre) Knudson and Barbra Halversdatter. I'm pretty excited because this just gave me a big step forward by finding the immigrant ancestors for my uncle Eric!
My next mystery solved was Simon Walter, my own immigrant ancestor on my grandpa's biological father's side. I had been able to find him in the census from 1855 to 1880 in Wisconsin but had not found him after that, nor in any immigration records. From all I could find, he was born around 1806-1810 and I didn't know when he died. One unique finding was the 1880 census had a column where the enumerator could list diseases or illnesses the person was suffering. I've never seen anything listed there before. But for Simon Walter, it said he was suffering from "Bilious Fever." I don't know much of what that means in today's terms but I assumed it was relatively serious, especially for a man around 70 years old.
The other day I was scanning find-a-grave to see if I could find anything new on a variety of lines. I searched for the surname "Walter" in Milwaukee County. The first hit that caught my eye was a memorial for a John Walter, b. Sep 28 1853. This was very interesting to me as this was the son of Simon Walter, and the brother of my ancestor Fred Walter. Then I looked at who else was in the cemetery, the "Independent Cemetery" in Oak Creek: a Katherina Walter and a SIMON WALTER. Almost lost my mind with excitement. Checked into it a little more, the dates for Katherine also fit with what I had for John's first wife (Katherina Baum). And, the Simon Walter was listed as born 12 Apr 1810 and died 7 Nov 1880. Death in 1880, not long after that 1880 census that stated he was ill with something that sounded nasty? Hmm.
My next step was figuring out what this whole "Independent Cemetery" business was about - it didn't seem to have anything online about it or any religious affiliations. So I asked someone (Nancy Honadel) at the Oak Creek Historical Society that I had gotten help from previously on some Catholic ancestors in the area who was able to help me track down that this was a combination of a cemetery for something called the Independent Cemetery, and then for St. John's Lutheran Church. She had a list of burials for St. John's which included not only John, Katherine, and Simon, but also a "Lena" died 1878 and a Margaretha died 1892.
I'm VERY interested in these as Simon had at least one wife named Magdalena/Margaretha. All of the children's birth records submitted in the 1860s state that their mother was a Margaretha Kuernlein (never really figured out how to read that name). However, half of the death recs I have found have listed their mother as a M. Strasser. Kind of very different from Kuernlein or any variation of THAT name. My latest idea on that front is that there were two different women that Simon married, and one may be responsible for some of children, and the other the rest. Needless to say I am chomping at the bit to solve that mystery.
Lucky me, I got in touch with a Pastor at this church, still standing, next door to the cemetery, and he is allowing me to come search the church documents in person this Friday. Am I excited? Yes. The only qualms I have were he mentioned sticking me in the basement with all the records. Sounds quite daunting. So we'll see what comes of that. I am very much looking forward to the opportunity to look into these records firsthand.
I'll try to update this a little more frequently!
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Brandmuller, Stark and Koch update!
Yet another delayed post. I have done a lot in the span of time since I wrote last.
One of the biggest areas of new information is in the Brandmueller region. I was able to discover at long last what parish the family belonged to in Baltimore. They belonged to St. Alphonsus which was near their home. The St. Mary's Archives contain the church records for this parish, and thus I was able to receive copies of baptismal registries for all of the siblings of my ancestor Margaret Brandmueller as well as their birthdates. These records are exceptional in that they allowed my to confirm Johanna's maiden name as Heninger, and also provided me with the area in Bavaria where both George Brandmueller and Johanna Heninger immigrated from. I now know that Johanna was from Buchenbach and Georg was from Staudach. I have yet to try to locate any information in these places. As far as I can tell it will be quite difficult.
Additionally I received death records for Michael Brandmueller (George's brother), Anna Brandmueller (George's mother) and JOHANNA HERSELF! I was extremely pleased when I received the latter two records. I had no idea that George's mother had come to America at all; I assumed that the children struck out on their own. The record gives Anna's maiden name but it is difficult to discern. It is something like "Neidhardt."
Johanna Heninger Brandmueller died 3 Feb 1864 of consumption.
I still wonder what happened to George, however, and have been trying to find this out. The last record I have of him is 1870 in Springfield, Dane Co., with the son Michael. I haven't been able to figuer out where Margaretha was because she hadn't married Peter Annen yet. I am trying to look into census records to determine if she was working as a domestic for someone in the area. I went to the church where they were married in an attempt to find records or graves for George Brandmueller. I found a great deal of Annen relatives there which helps support how Margaretha Brandmueller met Peter Annen. I didn't find anyone at the church when I visited so I am hoping to contact someone soon.
Another piece of this is that I found a family by the name of Weller who immigrated from Bavaria to...town of Springfield, Dane Co., and are living in the same area as George Brandmueller...the mother in this family is named Margaretha BRANDMUELLER, and came from Staudach. I am hoping to ascertain more of this relationship but it seems very likely that this lady is the sister of George!
I am excited that I have finally made a little progress on that line, however!
Another interesting line I've recently received new information is the Johanna Stark line of the Rinke family. This is, I think, unrelated to the Stark/Steffen line but I have long thought there might be a connection between the two lines because of the closeness of quarters of the two families. New information is starting to support this.
I recently undertook to do a full transcription of St. James Cemetery in Franklin, Wis., since I had already done most of the stones on my first trip there upon discovering that most of them were related to me. On the second trip I discovered some more Starck stones I hadn't seen on my first trip, thanks mostly to the fact that the shrubbery hadn't grown in yet (it was early April when I made the trip, and during summertime some stones are obscured by great big bushes and hostas).
In any event this new discovery of a Johann and Helena Starck was extremely puzzling to me as they didn't seem to fit in with the Starcks who had married into the Steffen family buried in that cemetery. There was a small group of other Starcks in the back of the cemetery which similarly did not fit into the first family. As the semester got a little hotter I put the Star[c]k problem on the backburner.
I received an email last week from Yon Hafer, who has proven to be a valuable resource. He has photos of a family I've never seen before, because my grandfather was adopted. He has photos of the Rinke family, and most notably of Johanna Stark Rinke, who was my ancestor and died young. Yon gave me information about Johanna's parents - that their names were Johann and Helena (Mick) Starck and that they had died in a cholera outbreak in Oct 1866..... This rang a bell. I checked my transcription - Johanna at St. James had died in Oct 1866 and so had Helena. I couldn't even BELIEVE this! I'm pretty excited to see what else I might learn on this line.
Another line I've found out more about is Ernest Koch and his wife Christina Schoso. I found the death record for Ernest - he died 24 Apr 1901. It gave me parents names (Ludwig and Albertina) as well as his date of birth. I similarly found Christina's death rec which didn't have parents' names, unfortunately. From these records, though, I was able to find out where they were buried in Pittsburgh.
I have been doing quite a bit else, too, and will try to update this a bit more frequently now that it is summer.
One of the biggest areas of new information is in the Brandmueller region. I was able to discover at long last what parish the family belonged to in Baltimore. They belonged to St. Alphonsus which was near their home. The St. Mary's Archives contain the church records for this parish, and thus I was able to receive copies of baptismal registries for all of the siblings of my ancestor Margaret Brandmueller as well as their birthdates. These records are exceptional in that they allowed my to confirm Johanna's maiden name as Heninger, and also provided me with the area in Bavaria where both George Brandmueller and Johanna Heninger immigrated from. I now know that Johanna was from Buchenbach and Georg was from Staudach. I have yet to try to locate any information in these places. As far as I can tell it will be quite difficult.
Additionally I received death records for Michael Brandmueller (George's brother), Anna Brandmueller (George's mother) and JOHANNA HERSELF! I was extremely pleased when I received the latter two records. I had no idea that George's mother had come to America at all; I assumed that the children struck out on their own. The record gives Anna's maiden name but it is difficult to discern. It is something like "Neidhardt."
Johanna Heninger Brandmueller died 3 Feb 1864 of consumption.
I still wonder what happened to George, however, and have been trying to find this out. The last record I have of him is 1870 in Springfield, Dane Co., with the son Michael. I haven't been able to figuer out where Margaretha was because she hadn't married Peter Annen yet. I am trying to look into census records to determine if she was working as a domestic for someone in the area. I went to the church where they were married in an attempt to find records or graves for George Brandmueller. I found a great deal of Annen relatives there which helps support how Margaretha Brandmueller met Peter Annen. I didn't find anyone at the church when I visited so I am hoping to contact someone soon.
Another piece of this is that I found a family by the name of Weller who immigrated from Bavaria to...town of Springfield, Dane Co., and are living in the same area as George Brandmueller...the mother in this family is named Margaretha BRANDMUELLER, and came from Staudach. I am hoping to ascertain more of this relationship but it seems very likely that this lady is the sister of George!
I am excited that I have finally made a little progress on that line, however!
Another interesting line I've recently received new information is the Johanna Stark line of the Rinke family. This is, I think, unrelated to the Stark/Steffen line but I have long thought there might be a connection between the two lines because of the closeness of quarters of the two families. New information is starting to support this.
I recently undertook to do a full transcription of St. James Cemetery in Franklin, Wis., since I had already done most of the stones on my first trip there upon discovering that most of them were related to me. On the second trip I discovered some more Starck stones I hadn't seen on my first trip, thanks mostly to the fact that the shrubbery hadn't grown in yet (it was early April when I made the trip, and during summertime some stones are obscured by great big bushes and hostas).
In any event this new discovery of a Johann and Helena Starck was extremely puzzling to me as they didn't seem to fit in with the Starcks who had married into the Steffen family buried in that cemetery. There was a small group of other Starcks in the back of the cemetery which similarly did not fit into the first family. As the semester got a little hotter I put the Star[c]k problem on the backburner.
I received an email last week from Yon Hafer, who has proven to be a valuable resource. He has photos of a family I've never seen before, because my grandfather was adopted. He has photos of the Rinke family, and most notably of Johanna Stark Rinke, who was my ancestor and died young. Yon gave me information about Johanna's parents - that their names were Johann and Helena (Mick) Starck and that they had died in a cholera outbreak in Oct 1866..... This rang a bell. I checked my transcription - Johanna at St. James had died in Oct 1866 and so had Helena. I couldn't even BELIEVE this! I'm pretty excited to see what else I might learn on this line.
Another line I've found out more about is Ernest Koch and his wife Christina Schoso. I found the death record for Ernest - he died 24 Apr 1901. It gave me parents names (Ludwig and Albertina) as well as his date of birth. I similarly found Christina's death rec which didn't have parents' names, unfortunately. From these records, though, I was able to find out where they were buried in Pittsburgh.
I have been doing quite a bit else, too, and will try to update this a bit more frequently now that it is summer.
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