Wow I do get too carried away with real life sometimes. I was just noticing that my tree is about to hit 17,000 individuals, and that I had not updated this blog for some time. Of course I am still here and still working on my genealogy.
So far this year I have done quite a lot of research within two distinct areas. First, I worked on some Dane County families. It turns out my Diebold and Annen lines, combined with the Starck line which moved to Madison from the Milwaukee area, all have an extremely interesting interrelationship within Dane County. Once I got started on some of my Grass family line, who were then related to Essers, Fischenicks, Statz, and Wermuths and all sorts of others throughout Dane County. It was pretty amazing to realize just how close some of these people are related, even if they may not have known it at the time.
I also learned more about the Carpenter line which comes from the Grass family. Maria Katharina Grass married Johannes Carpenter and one of their sons, Lawrence, had owned much of the land which is now occupied by Madison West High School. Through newspaper articles I found that they sold most of the land for the school in the mid-1920s. Pretty neat little history lesson, and some of the articles I found contained photos. Lawrence is buried on the point of Resurrection cemetery which is nearest to Madison West. I wonder if they planned it that way.
My second big project lately is the main topic of this post, that of Orenhofen records. Towards the beginning of this year I decided to start filling in my Starck/Stark family tree more. I got the idea in my head that perhaps I might write a genealogy book on the family some day, so I wanted to work on finding as much information as I could on the Starck family.
One gap that I quickly identified was the family of Johann Stark (and his wife Mary Barbara Oppmann), who was the son of Matthias Stark and Margaretha Schmitz. I did not have much on his family, children or other descendants. I began working on the line and found they had moved to Rozellville/ Day township, Marathon county, Wisconsin. Online, I found the husband of one of Johann's descendants through his son Mathias Leon Stark. This cousin was able to provide me with a spreadsheet containing data from the Sister Barbara Stark genealogy. This was AMAZING! Ever since I had begun researching the Starck family, I had seen many references to the Sister Barbara Stark genealogy, but no one ever had the full genealogy online or otherwise if I contacted them. Sister Barbara completed this genealogy back in the early 1960s. It was really awesome to finally get ahold of some of this data, and the other great information he was willing to share.
The one amazing detail that gave a completely new perspective to my work was the information Sister Barbara had included on siblings of Margaret Schmitz, wife of Mathias Stark. She had included names and married names for the siblings, although not much more detail was included. This set me to work. One of the names was a Katharina Schmitz who had married a John Massino and moved to Madison, Wisconsin. It was easy for me to quickly locate her death record and information on her children, some of whom has lived their lives in Madison and others who had moved to Minnesota.
Another sister was Magdalena Schmitz, who had married a Theodor Heid and lived in Appleton. Here was the first inkling that this thing was much bigger than I had imagined, and that if I kept going it would really never stop. Theodor came from a town named Preist which is right near where Magdalena was born, in Orenhofen. One of their daughters married an Anthony Oppmann who was the brother to Mary Barbara Oppman (married to Johann Stark above).
Christian Schmitz was the brother to these sisters mentioned above. It turns out he ended up in Marathon Co. as had Johann Stark and the Oppmanns, and as it will be seen, another family (Kiefers).
At almost the same time I met, online, a descendant of Nicholas Stark and his second wife, Katherine Kiefer. Nicholas was the son of Johann Starck and Helena Mick. Before I met this cousin, I hadn't had much of anything for this second marriage. I had most of the information filled in for Nick's first marriage to Agnes Hagemann (whose father is my ancestor on another line) and had even found where Agnes was buried, in a parish in the Black Creek area of Outagamie County. Nick's descendant helped me fill in more gaps and also was able to send me some wonderful photos of his family and of his ancestors the Starks. Every time I find a new Stark picture it makes me really happy to see another face to put to a name I've spent so much time studying.
Anyway, the more of these branches I saw the closer the floodgates came to bursting. Across three main families I saw a big pattern emerging. I was working to prove that the siblings mentioned for Margaretha Schmitz were actually related. I was looking into the married-in families of Oppmann and Kiefer because it seemed the more I looked the more they seemed to keep marrying each other, and kept living near one another on various census records. The main pattern I was finding was: Orenhofen -->> Milwaukee/Oak Creek, Wisconsin -->> Appleton/Fox River Valley, Wisconsin -->> Marathon County, Wisconsin
Some offshoots moved to Marshfield and Madison, and a few of the younger generations ended up in Milwaukee or Chicago. But overall, those families were tightly associated with moves from one locale to the next.
I found that the Heids are buried next to the Starks in St. Joseph's Cemetery in Appleton. Also there is an Anton Schoenhofen who is apparently the son of one of the Micks.
This fascinated me, and I wondered- so, are there others? I sought to prove more relationships of people seen in the census, as well as close some holes in my genealogy. Such as, were my two women Mick ancestors related? I had always imagined that they were but had not been able to prove it. I also wanted to know if others from Orenhofen had immigrated and followed along with my ancestors' path through Wisconsin.
As part of this search I looked into the records for St. Edwards in Black Creek/Mackville/Center Township (where Agnes Hagemann Starck was buried) as I assumed the family [ies??] at some point had belonged. First I stumbled upon the cemetery itself, quite by accident, and found her grave as well as some possible relatives (that I have not proven yet, but including such names as Heid, Schmitz, etc.). I then visited the Green Bay Diocese and searched their microfilms of the church records themselves, for both St. Edward and for St. Joseph's in Appleton. I found many references to the different clans themselves, including, surprisingly, the Waldvogel family which would have been Agnes Hagemann Starck's step mother's parents (Konrad Waldvogel and Anna Maria Keller), who apparently were also part of the Milwaukee/Oak Creek, Wisconsin -->> Appleton/Fox River Valley, Wisconsin -->> Marathon County, Wisconsin migration (the Waldvogels and Hagemans were NOT from Trier, however)
The church records were useful in highlighting key parts of my research but I was still missing data that I was interested in.
Next was to look back in Germany. I knew the families were Catholic so I did some searching and found the Trier Bistumsarchiv which contains Catholic records for the Trier region of Germany, which is where Orenhofen and nearby towns are located. I found that the price was quite reasonable, about €15 or $20 for five records. They were able to confirm the siblings' names and birth dates which I had for Margaretha Schmitz, and they also helped me prove that my ancestors Catharina Mick (married Matthias Schmitz) and Helena Mick (Johann Stark) were in fact sisters. This was really amazing to finally find proof for!
Around this same time I had a great stroke of luck and was contacted by a distant relation who had found some of my work on find-a-grave. He is related through the Junk family on my mother's side, and lives in Germany. We discussed our related family and he also offered to help if there was anything I was curious about in Trier, as he has several resources available to him for that region. This was an extremely generous and kind offer on his part. Through the resources and Familienbuchs he has which are based on parish registers and other local data, he has helped me flesh out my Starck, Schmitz and Mick lines, and so much more! From the information he has sent me I have found more branches that emigrated to the United States (particularly to Wisconsin). Thanks to his gracious efforts, I now have solid lines back to the 18th and in some cases, 17th century Germany! It helped to show me that the Starcks and even some of the Schmitzes were involved in pipe baking/making since far before they came to the Milwaukee area and established their clay pipe making business there.
An interesting note on some information I found through this research: It turns out I have two Schmitz lines originating in the Orenhofen area. My main Schmitzes discussed above, and then also a Schmitz line through the Mick line. Father of my ancestors Catharina and Helena Mick was Johann Peter Mick, who was married to a Susanne Schmitz. Susanne's line is not as well drawn out in the records as most of the other Schmitzes from the area, so I do not know as much about her. However, her mother was Maria Magdalene Mischo, who was born 6 Nov 1740 in Schleidweiler (near Orenhofen). Her parents appear to have married in a very small village nearby called Muelchen or Multgen.
There was not much information in the Schleidweiler records regarding the Mischos so I turned to another resource I have for this area, Thomas Pick's work which is online (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pick). There I found a town of Multgen referenced and some records with the last name of Michau. I wondered if this might be the same general name as Mischo, and realized it did indeed sound a bit French. My German cousin was able to find reference to this town. It was founded by a group of ironworkers who around 1635 had been forced to leave their hometown of Mulgen in the Wallonia region of Belgium. They were mostly French-ancestried and were forced to leave because of a falling-out with their king (I have yet to find more on what or why this would be). I just found out this last bit of information so am still in the process of looking into the whole story, but it is very interesting, and the first hint of any Belgian ancestry for me. I do have French ancestors, but these are the first that I know of who lived in Belgium.
Showing posts with label Stark. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stark. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Saturday, October 13, 2012
A little bit of everything - One BIG update
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.
----
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.
----
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.
----
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!!
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.
----------------------------
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.
-----
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.
-----
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.
----
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.
----
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.
----
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.
----
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.
----
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!!
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.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Cemetery Visits; new censuses available; Everett Reynolds' disappearing act; photo project
Hold tight for a long entry!
The weekend before this past one I went to several cemeteries. The first, St. James, held great promise as I had no idea who I would actually find there but had read online that my ancestor Peter Steffen had donated the land for the cemetery and the church. I went there first because I was excited that he might be there since I don't know much about him or his family.
I found that I am probably related to almost everyone in the cemetery there. The cemetery is full of Hagemanns and Fischers which was pretty intersting. My greatest find, though, was Peter Steffen's moument which had his daughter Franziska Steffen Starck's information on it. Franziska was married to Peter Starck, and their daughter Helen Stark is my great-great grandmother. Franziska had died young but I hadn't been able to find records for her birth nor death. The stone however had both dates in full, and this is very exciting. There were other Steffens throughout the cemetery as well as other families married in to the ones mentioned before. Some of the Steffens were ones I did not have in my records and I have yet to figure out who exactly they are. Other names in the cemetery such as Puetz and Peshon are related to us through the surnames already mentioned, also.
An interesting find towards the back of the cemetery was a stone which had some young Starck people on it but I only know who one of them was.. there was a Mathias, Margaretha and Gertud and I was only able to find the Mathias in the records I have as being a brother of Peter Starck. I do not know who the others are but all are early births and deaths.
After this cemetery I went down the road a ways to St. Martin of Tours cemetery. I searched the entire cemetery, puzzled that I hadn't found Peter Stark even though his death record had said this was where he was buried. As I was walking back to the car I saw the name Stark on the back of a stone which I had searched the front of earlier. I got closer and found that indeed Peter's name, and that of his second wife Margaret Logic, was carved on the back of his daughter Mary Stark's stone with her husband George Acker.
Next I made a return to St. Louis Cemetery in Caledonia because I had found out that the family of Franziska Steffen's mother, Elizabetha Rauguth, had lived in Caledonia and belonged to the St. Louis parish. This is quite the coincidence that the ancestors/families of my grandpa Schmitt's father and mother lived near and knew each other long before Catherine Emerich and Lester Walter were even born. I'm not sure if this was a conscious connection or not but I will try to find out.
Finally, this past weekend I went back to Hake (Rock River) Cemetery in Jefferson to try to look for the McConnells that I could not find on my previous visit. Alex McConnell's death record said that he was buried there but I have still been unable to find his gravestone or that of his wife, Elizabeth Hake McConnell. I did some poking around but all I found really was a gopher which came lunging at me across the cemetery. I also noted that Alex's business partner W. H. Hake was buried a row down the hill from where the McConnell children are (and where I believe Alex and Elizabeth to be as well).
I have also been puzzling over the problem of Everett Elisha Reynolds. I do not know for sure if he simply disappeared or died while the family was living in Deerfield. I found on familysearch.org's new pilot site that they have Wisconsin censuses from, 1855, 75, 85, 95 and 05, most I've never seen before much less knew existed. Through these I looked up several families I am interested in, including finding John Mayville in DePere in 1855.
But back to the Deerfield question. When my grandmother first told me about these families as I was starting research on that side of the family, she told me a story about how "Garfield Reynolds" had gone west to California during the gold rush, and that he had written some letters back at first but then the family had never heard from him again.
The only Garfield I have found in my records was the son of Everett Elisha Reynolds and Kate McConnell, and he was born in 1882, quite long after the California gold rush (1849) and seems to have lived in Jefferson Co most of his life as a painter, usually his residence was with his widowed(?) mother, Kate. He died there in 1940 and is buried at Hake Cemetery with his mother but no Everett anywhere to be found. I had narrowed down that Everett had died or disappeared by 1900 but with the 1895 census available I was able to narrow down his timeframe to disappearing between 1886 (the year his last child was born) and 1895. I find that he could not have gone west for the gold rush in CA (he was born in 1847) and that his father (Elisha Tilton) would not have done so either, because he seems to have lived out his life in its entirety in northern Maine.
So the dilemma is, who is this my grandmother was referring to? His name can't have been Garfield, but was it Everett Elisha? The story must be true to some respect- someone had disappeared- but who was it? Kate was listed as a widow in 1895 and 1900-- did Everett simply die in Deerfield, or did he go west for some unknown reason and not turn back?
I already have one instance of him leaving his life to go somewhere new. Everett had a wife, Melissa Harris, in his native Maine. All but one of the children from that marriage died young, the last of those in 1880 when presumably he picked up and left for Wisconsin--- not sure if he brought his one daughter, Verna Luella, with him but he married Kate McConnell in 1881 and had three children, then within 5 years had disappeared again. So, that is something I have been puzzling about, as well as who took care of Verna for all this time and how she ended up marrying a man from Ohio.
Something else going on is that I have started a new project, because I just didn't have enough to do before :P I have started scanning all of my Mayville grandparents' photos in the hope of eventually getting them on a website (http://jadesgenes.250x.com/) eventually... although it is going to take quite some while as I haven't even gotten to the beginning of the scanning, and once I do that I have to resize images and upload them, and then code it all on... in general its a huge project.
I have made an appointment for the Vital Recs office on Wednesday. the day was completely open so the lady offered me two slots in a row, so I will have over 4 hours to search the records. Woohoo.
The weekend before this past one I went to several cemeteries. The first, St. James, held great promise as I had no idea who I would actually find there but had read online that my ancestor Peter Steffen had donated the land for the cemetery and the church. I went there first because I was excited that he might be there since I don't know much about him or his family.
I found that I am probably related to almost everyone in the cemetery there. The cemetery is full of Hagemanns and Fischers which was pretty intersting. My greatest find, though, was Peter Steffen's moument which had his daughter Franziska Steffen Starck's information on it. Franziska was married to Peter Starck, and their daughter Helen Stark is my great-great grandmother. Franziska had died young but I hadn't been able to find records for her birth nor death. The stone however had both dates in full, and this is very exciting. There were other Steffens throughout the cemetery as well as other families married in to the ones mentioned before. Some of the Steffens were ones I did not have in my records and I have yet to figure out who exactly they are. Other names in the cemetery such as Puetz and Peshon are related to us through the surnames already mentioned, also.
An interesting find towards the back of the cemetery was a stone which had some young Starck people on it but I only know who one of them was.. there was a Mathias, Margaretha and Gertud and I was only able to find the Mathias in the records I have as being a brother of Peter Starck. I do not know who the others are but all are early births and deaths.
After this cemetery I went down the road a ways to St. Martin of Tours cemetery. I searched the entire cemetery, puzzled that I hadn't found Peter Stark even though his death record had said this was where he was buried. As I was walking back to the car I saw the name Stark on the back of a stone which I had searched the front of earlier. I got closer and found that indeed Peter's name, and that of his second wife Margaret Logic, was carved on the back of his daughter Mary Stark's stone with her husband George Acker.
Next I made a return to St. Louis Cemetery in Caledonia because I had found out that the family of Franziska Steffen's mother, Elizabetha Rauguth, had lived in Caledonia and belonged to the St. Louis parish. This is quite the coincidence that the ancestors/families of my grandpa Schmitt's father and mother lived near and knew each other long before Catherine Emerich and Lester Walter were even born. I'm not sure if this was a conscious connection or not but I will try to find out.
Finally, this past weekend I went back to Hake (Rock River) Cemetery in Jefferson to try to look for the McConnells that I could not find on my previous visit. Alex McConnell's death record said that he was buried there but I have still been unable to find his gravestone or that of his wife, Elizabeth Hake McConnell. I did some poking around but all I found really was a gopher which came lunging at me across the cemetery. I also noted that Alex's business partner W. H. Hake was buried a row down the hill from where the McConnell children are (and where I believe Alex and Elizabeth to be as well).
I have also been puzzling over the problem of Everett Elisha Reynolds. I do not know for sure if he simply disappeared or died while the family was living in Deerfield. I found on familysearch.org's new pilot site that they have Wisconsin censuses from, 1855, 75, 85, 95 and 05, most I've never seen before much less knew existed. Through these I looked up several families I am interested in, including finding John Mayville in DePere in 1855.
But back to the Deerfield question. When my grandmother first told me about these families as I was starting research on that side of the family, she told me a story about how "Garfield Reynolds" had gone west to California during the gold rush, and that he had written some letters back at first but then the family had never heard from him again.
The only Garfield I have found in my records was the son of Everett Elisha Reynolds and Kate McConnell, and he was born in 1882, quite long after the California gold rush (1849) and seems to have lived in Jefferson Co most of his life as a painter, usually his residence was with his widowed(?) mother, Kate. He died there in 1940 and is buried at Hake Cemetery with his mother but no Everett anywhere to be found. I had narrowed down that Everett had died or disappeared by 1900 but with the 1895 census available I was able to narrow down his timeframe to disappearing between 1886 (the year his last child was born) and 1895. I find that he could not have gone west for the gold rush in CA (he was born in 1847) and that his father (Elisha Tilton) would not have done so either, because he seems to have lived out his life in its entirety in northern Maine.
So the dilemma is, who is this my grandmother was referring to? His name can't have been Garfield, but was it Everett Elisha? The story must be true to some respect- someone had disappeared- but who was it? Kate was listed as a widow in 1895 and 1900-- did Everett simply die in Deerfield, or did he go west for some unknown reason and not turn back?
I already have one instance of him leaving his life to go somewhere new. Everett had a wife, Melissa Harris, in his native Maine. All but one of the children from that marriage died young, the last of those in 1880 when presumably he picked up and left for Wisconsin--- not sure if he brought his one daughter, Verna Luella, with him but he married Kate McConnell in 1881 and had three children, then within 5 years had disappeared again. So, that is something I have been puzzling about, as well as who took care of Verna for all this time and how she ended up marrying a man from Ohio.
Something else going on is that I have started a new project, because I just didn't have enough to do before :P I have started scanning all of my Mayville grandparents' photos in the hope of eventually getting them on a website (http://jadesgenes.250x.com/) eventually... although it is going to take quite some while as I haven't even gotten to the beginning of the scanning, and once I do that I have to resize images and upload them, and then code it all on... in general its a huge project.
I have made an appointment for the Vital Recs office on Wednesday. the day was completely open so the lady offered me two slots in a row, so I will have over 4 hours to search the records. Woohoo.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Emmerichs, Stark
Hello first of all, I received an awesome email last week regarding the Emmerich family. A lady named Sue Stabler contacted me, and she is a granddaughter of Alex Emerich, who is my great-great grandfather. She knows a lot about the family, consequently, and I'm very excited to learn what information she may have about the Emmerichs, since we don't know very much!! She also has pictures of course and I can't wait to see them. Its going to be great. She told me that Peter and Catherine (Hageman) Emmerich donated the land that St. Louis Church (in Caledonia) is now on, and that one of the stained glass windows was dedicated to them.
This is very exciting and should help flesh out that area of the family tree.
Another email I just received pertains to Johanna Stark who married Ferdinand Rinke and is the mother of Matilda Rinke (who married Alex Emerich). Cathy may have information which provides the names of Johanna's parents, who I was previously unable to find any information about. That will be a good step forward!!
Its almost summer so that is very good- Soon I will be hitting up a bunch of cemeteries and hopefully finding out a lot of new info about the family.
This is very exciting and should help flesh out that area of the family tree.
Another email I just received pertains to Johanna Stark who married Ferdinand Rinke and is the mother of Matilda Rinke (who married Alex Emerich). Cathy may have information which provides the names of Johanna's parents, who I was previously unable to find any information about. That will be a good step forward!!
Its almost summer so that is very good- Soon I will be hitting up a bunch of cemeteries and hopefully finding out a lot of new info about the family.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Rauguth/Steffen & McConnell/Hake
Just a little tidbit so you know I haven't forgotten about this thing.. I think that I have found miscellaneous scraps of info that I haven't put here in the past month, because I've been pretty busy with school.. however, I figure this is a pretty big update even for it being rather small.
I went to the historical society quick because I found a record for the death of an Anna E. Steffen, who I thought may be the same who was married to John Peter Steffen (their daughter Franciska married Peter Stark, whose daughter Helen married into the Walter family). Turns out that this was indeed the person I was looking for. I confirmed her maiden name of Anna Elizabeth Rauguth, and also found out her birth date. Additionally, the death record stated that she is buried at St. Jacob's, which I haven't yet determined the location of. They lived around Oak Creek, however, so I would assume it is in that area.
Another good find was Alex McConnell's death record. He is not in the Wisconsin Historical Society's index of pre-1907 Birth, Marriage and Death records, so I was not able to find him in that way. Instead, knowing his date of death, I looked for someone who had died the same day and in the same county as Alex, and looked that person up. I then looked near that person's record and happened to find Alex's death record. It proved very useful.
Firstly, It told me that his birthday was 8 Jun 1824 and that he was born in Perry Co., Pennsylvania. From census records, it was impossible to tell where he was born because in some places it stated he was born in Pennsylvania and in others, it said Ohio. Therefore, this will help in the search for his parents, because I now have a county to start with in PA. It is possible that Alex's father's name was either Samuel or John, as these were two heads of household living in Perry Co. in both 1820 and 1830.
Additionally, the record provided that he was buried in Hake Cemetery, and his wife was Elizabeth Hake. This is extraordinary, because it only serves to further the connection with the Hakes which most certainly exists, even though I and my Hake contacts have been unable to ascertain who Elizabeth's parents were for sure (we still think her father was John Philip).
If you remember, I took a trip to that cemetery (now Rock River) a few months ago, and clearly Alex & Elizabeth's stones were no longer visible. I am hoping once it is warm enough, to be able to visit the cemetery and poke around a bit to figure out where the stones might be. I would be inclined to believe that they are in the somewhat vacant space near Kate McConnell & Garfield Reynolds, as well as the other children of Alex & Elizabeth. Hopefully I can turn something up. I also want to try to find out who in particular is in charge of that cemetery so I might find interment records which could indicate further useful information.
I've let my Hake contacts know about the information I got today... Vital Records were apparently not required until the early 20th century for Pennsylvania, so I am not sure how much I will be able to find; however, I plan on writing to a genealogical society in that area, if possible.
I went to the historical society quick because I found a record for the death of an Anna E. Steffen, who I thought may be the same who was married to John Peter Steffen (their daughter Franciska married Peter Stark, whose daughter Helen married into the Walter family). Turns out that this was indeed the person I was looking for. I confirmed her maiden name of Anna Elizabeth Rauguth, and also found out her birth date. Additionally, the death record stated that she is buried at St. Jacob's, which I haven't yet determined the location of. They lived around Oak Creek, however, so I would assume it is in that area.
Another good find was Alex McConnell's death record. He is not in the Wisconsin Historical Society's index of pre-1907 Birth, Marriage and Death records, so I was not able to find him in that way. Instead, knowing his date of death, I looked for someone who had died the same day and in the same county as Alex, and looked that person up. I then looked near that person's record and happened to find Alex's death record. It proved very useful.
Firstly, It told me that his birthday was 8 Jun 1824 and that he was born in Perry Co., Pennsylvania. From census records, it was impossible to tell where he was born because in some places it stated he was born in Pennsylvania and in others, it said Ohio. Therefore, this will help in the search for his parents, because I now have a county to start with in PA. It is possible that Alex's father's name was either Samuel or John, as these were two heads of household living in Perry Co. in both 1820 and 1830.
Additionally, the record provided that he was buried in Hake Cemetery, and his wife was Elizabeth Hake. This is extraordinary, because it only serves to further the connection with the Hakes which most certainly exists, even though I and my Hake contacts have been unable to ascertain who Elizabeth's parents were for sure (we still think her father was John Philip).
If you remember, I took a trip to that cemetery (now Rock River) a few months ago, and clearly Alex & Elizabeth's stones were no longer visible. I am hoping once it is warm enough, to be able to visit the cemetery and poke around a bit to figure out where the stones might be. I would be inclined to believe that they are in the somewhat vacant space near Kate McConnell & Garfield Reynolds, as well as the other children of Alex & Elizabeth. Hopefully I can turn something up. I also want to try to find out who in particular is in charge of that cemetery so I might find interment records which could indicate further useful information.
I've let my Hake contacts know about the information I got today... Vital Records were apparently not required until the early 20th century for Pennsylvania, so I am not sure how much I will be able to find; however, I plan on writing to a genealogical society in that area, if possible.
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