Looking For My German Ancestors, Part 10

As you may remember from my previous post, I had promised that I would begin writing about researching my German ancestors in German records; however, I have decided to devote another article to my ancestors' lives in the United States as I have an update to make on some mini-mysteries that I had about my ancestors. In a future post, I will continue my series by writing about my research findings in a few German records.

As I mentioned earlier,I've made some progress my research into my Klippel and Kees ancestors over the past several months.  A part of this progress came about through my research in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century newspapers of Saginaw and Bay City, Michigan. While the majority of my findings only provided some interesting facts about the lives of my Klippel ancestors and Anna's husband, I did uncover a brief obituary or death notice for Emilia (Kees) Klippel. Emilia (or sometimes recorded as Amelia in other records) Klippel's obituary listed the names of her children and indicated that she would be buried in Cleveland. Since her husband, Friedrich, was not mentioned in the notice, I think it may be safe to conclude that he had already died. In addition, the notice indicated that she died of pneumonia which contradicts the cause of death listed in her death record. Since the notice was printed a day after she died and since death records in Michigan before 1897 tend to be inaccurate, I've decided to conclude that the cause of death listed in the newspaper is the accurate cause of death.

In addition to uncovering my ancestor's obituary, I also uncovered some information about Anna Klippel's brother, Henry, that confirmed my grandma's claim that he had a child with his first wife. As you may remember from my post, "The Wives of the Two Henrys ...," I had mentioned that I had been unable to find evidence that Henry had a daughter with his first wife, Ida; however, after searching through the Bay City, Michigan newspapers earlier this year, I finally did find proof of a child and discovered the daughter's name. Once I had a name for Henry's daughter, I searched through FamilySearch's Michigan Birth Records and found a birth record for the child. Previously, I had not been able to find a birth record because I did not know the name of Henry's daughter and because Henry's last name had been misspelled in the record and index. I also searched the death records for Michigan on the FamilySearch and Seeking Michigan websites, but I was unable to find a death record for Henry's daughter. (I have refrained from giving the name the child in the remote chance that she is still alive.) At this time, I am uncertain as to what happened to Henry's daughter after Ida died, and I have been unable to find Henry in the 1910 census. The only possible clue I have to the fate of Henry's daughter is my grandmother's claim that Ida took her daughter away from Henry after she divorced him. Although the death certificate could be incorrect, Ida's death certificate indicated that she was still married, but that does not rule out the possibility that Ida and Henry were in the process of a divorce. In addition, the death certificate indicated that Ida died of consumption, and she may have become too ill to care for her daughter. (Henry may have been working as a sailor on a Great Lakes' ship as newspaper article a couple years later indicated that Henry was working on a ship.) Was Henry and Ida's daughter in the custody of Ida's relatives at Ida's death, and did they refuse to give back to Henry his daughter? At the moment, I am struggling to locate Ida's siblings in the 1910 census, but I am uncertain as to whether or not  most of Ida's siblings returned to Canada. I know one brother continued to live in Bay City, but I did not find a female in his household that fit Henry and Ida's daughter. Of course, there is a possibility that my family tradition is incorrect, and that Henry and Ida's daughter might not have been taken in by her maternal relatives. Could have Henry and Ida's daughter been temporarily place in a home while Ida was ill, and later, put up up for adoption? The only way I can answer those questions would be to examine court records in Bay County, Michigan, and I'll have to make a trip to Bay City to do the research.

In addition to the discoveries I made in the newspaper articles, I also discovered where Henry Klippel, his second wife, mother, Emilia (Kees) Klippel, and grandfather, Adolph Kees, were buried in Cleveland, Ohio. I found their burial places by searching an index of Riverside Cemetery's burial records. I haven't yet emailed the cemetery to find out what additional information (if any) that the cemetery might have on them, but I intend to do so once I have a chance. Even though Friedrich is not listed as being buried in the cemetery in the index, I hope that I may find a clue from any additional information that the cemetery might have on Emilia. Of course, I now have a new mini-mystery to figure out in regards to Adolph's burial since the index indicates he wasn't buried at the cemetery until nearly a month after his death. It may be the case that he was buried somewhere else first and then reburied at this cemetery, or possibly that the ground was too hard to dig a grave until later. ( Adolph died in early March.) Again, the cemetery may have additional information on what had occurred.

Besides the discoveries I made on my own, I also received an email from my contact in Germany that included information she had found in a German archive. One piece of information was a copy of a letter that my ancestor, Marianne (Anna Maria) Pirker wrote to her husband, Franz Joseph Karl Pirker, and the other piece of information was a pdf of a book published in 1899. The book included information on the descendants of one of my Cotta ancestors, and it confirmed my suspicion that the Henriette Cunz who married a Frank Voelker in Cleveland, Ohio was Adolph Kees' daughter, Henrietta. Of course, the book also included information on my Cotta ancestor's ancestors, and I was able to find additional information on my Cotta ancestors and family from the information included. Obviously, I am very grateful for the information that my contact provided. In a future post, I hope to write further about my Cotta ancestors, especially once I am able to examine church records from Stuttgart and Tuebingen, Germany.

Of course, in future posts, I plan to write about my research into German records on my other lines of German ancestors; however, that may change if I uncover additional information on my German ancestors in the United States, and I will write about those discoveries as well. So, stay tuned for future posts, and enjoy!

And Another Mini-Breakthrough into the Research on my Oswalt Ancestors ...

Before I get back to posting on my findings of my newly-found Oswalt ancestors, I want to mention another breakthrough I had in solving a small mystery with my more established Oswalt ancestors. A few years ago, I posted on my difficulty in locating the marriage record for ancestor's third marriage, and I briefly described what I knew about John's third wife. Up until this year, I had not been successful in locating the record for John's third marriage primarily because I had concentrated my search for the record in Michigan, with an occasionally glance into Indiana. More specifically, I had only searched FamilySearch's databases for Michigan and Indiana  marriage since I knew John resided in Michigan during the period that the marriage would have taken place and lived only one county north of the border with Indiana. I had not considered searching the Ohio Marriages database even though I knew from census records that John's third wife was from Ohio .

So, when FamilySearch updated the Ohio County Marriages database earlier this year, I decided to search for my ancestor's third marriage on the random chance that he married in Ohio, and surprisingly, I found the marriage record recorded in Warren County, Ohio. Apparently, John's last wife was from Warren County, and since I had not been able to find her in the census records before, I did not know where she was from in Ohio. Unfortunately, the marriage record did not indicated where the marriage had taken place, although I suspect it may have been in Warren County since the minister officiating at the ceremony resided in the county. I will have to search the newspapers in Warren County for a marriage notice, though, to confirm my suspicions.  The lesson here is that if a bride and groom are from two different states, one should always search for the marriage record in both states no matter how unlikely it might seem that the marriage occurred in one of those states. I had always believed that John's last marriage occurred in Michigan since he resided in Michigan and his first two marriages had occurred in that state, and I had been unable to find this marriage before because I had dismissed looking for the marriage in Ohio as being improbable.

Of course, now I have more questions and a new mystery to solve. How did John meet his new wife, since Warren County, Ohio is nowhere near where John and his children resided in Michigan? Where were John's children staying while John remarried? Did John and his children temporarily live in Ohio at one point? From what my grandfather's aunt told my grandfather, the marriage came as a surprise to the children, and John just showed up his new wife one day. I had always assumed that the marriage had occurred in Michigan as a result of this tradition. I might never know the answer to those questions, although I hope I find some a newspaper article on the marriage that provides a hint or clue to those questions. If I ever find a marriage notice, I will post an update. Stay tuned ...

And Another Update on the Research Into My Oswalt Ancestors ...

A few days ago, I promised that I would post another update on the progress I made on my Oswalt ancestors. Instead  of posting more information on Adam Oswalt (died 1837-1838), the father of Benjamin Oswalt (died 1861), I will write about the findings I made on a few of the grandchildren of Adam Oswalt (died 1837-1838) which includes my Civil War ancestor, Adam Oswalt.

As you may remember, I wrote a series of articles a few years ago that explored whether or not the Civil War veterans, Adam Oswalt, Benjamin Oswalt and William Oswalt, were brothers. At that time, I only had indirect evidence to conclude that the three men were brothers; however, I can now definitely state that they are brothers. How? Well, I ordered two additional Civil War Pension files earlier this year.

Previously, I had only ordered Adam and Benjamin Oswalt's Pension files, and those files did not indicate whether or not the two men had a connection. (I should quickly note that Benjamin's Pension file was actually a Widow's Pension as his widow filed for a pension file after his death.) So, when I decided to order additional Pension files this year, I chose to order William's Pension file (or Widow's Pension, to be more accurate) and the Widow's Pension file for one of Adam's Detwiler brother-in-laws. (I will discuss the Detwiler Pension file in a future post.)

From the testimony of William's widow, Eliza, I learned that William, Benjamin and Adam were indeed brothers as I suspected, and confirmed that the men had a sister named Margaret who lived in Michigan. Besides confirming relationships, the file also listed the names of William and Eliza's children and Eliza's children of a later marriage, gave the date and location of William and Eliza's marriage, and provided an explanation of why I could not find a record of that marriage. Apparently, William and Eliza's marriage was not recorded in the county. Although Michigan law required that marriage notices be placed in two newspapers in the county where the marriage occurred, I haven't yet found a notice. I will need to do a more in-depth search of the newspaper records of Saint Joseph County, Michigan.

So, as one can see from the above information, Civil War Pension files could contain a great amount of detail on the lives and families of Civil War Veterans. Unfortunately, the file does not answer all the questions I have about these Oswalts, especially when it comes to the maiden name of William, Benjamin and Adam's mother. In a future post, I will discuss my efforts so far to answer additional questions on my Oswalt ancestors. Enjoy!

An Ancestor Found: An Update On The Research Into My Oswalt Acestors

As I mentioned previously, I worked on my genealogy when I had some free time, and I will briefly discuss some of the findings I made for one branch.  Interestingly, I had not expected to make any progress on my Oswalt ancestors this past year, but that is what happened!

At the end of June 2012, FamilySearch put images of the probate records for many of Pennsylvania's counties online. Some of Huntingdon County's Will Books and Orphan's Court records were included in this database, and that July, I decided to look through these images to see if I could uncover any new information on my Huntingdon County ancestors. Previously, I had only examined the Will Books for Oswalt/Oswald surnames and examined the Orphan Court Records for my ancestor, Benjamin Oswalt/d by ordering the microfilmed records held by the Family History Library. As you may remember from a previous post, Benjamin's probate records did not mention the names of his heirs apart from his wife, Mary, and son, John. I re-looked at the probate records for Benjamin again, but I did not uncover anything that I had not found before. After that disappointment, I decided to look at the probate and orphan court records for an Adam Oswalt/Oswald who had died in Huntingdon County in the late-1830s. Previously, I had only examined the notation in the Will Book, which only mentioned the names of the court-appointed administrators of Adam's estate; however, when I decided to see if the Orphan Court had any additional probate records, I uncovered a mini-goldmine of information. Previously, I had dismissed the idea of examining the Orphan Court records for Adam because I had not obtained any new information from the records on Benjamin's probate.

I had always suspected from an examination of the 1820 and 1830 censuses and tax records for Huntingdon County that his Adam Oswalt and my ancestor, Benjamin, were related in some way, possibly as father and son; however, I had not been able to confirm my suspicion. The Orphan Court records confirmed my suspicion, and also gave the names of Benjamin's living siblings and Adam's widow, who I presume to Benjamin's mother.

From the Orphan Court records, I learned that Adam Oswald had owned land in Hopewell Township, and that he had at least seven children. Adam apparently either died in 1837 or 1838, and his children sold their father's land. Adam's widow, Mary, probably died around 1848, as five of Adam's children did not receive their shares of the land sale until that year, and the delay probably had to do with Mary's dower's right  in her husband's land. (Of course, I need to check the laws for that period to make sure that my assumption is correct.)

So far, the known children (in no particular order of age) of Adam Oswalt (d. 1837-1838) and Mary ? are:

• Benjamin Oswalt (d. 1861) - eldest son (I do not know who Adam and Mary's firstborn is yet.)
• Eve Oswalt wife of William States
• Adam Oswalt - youngest son (He lived in Blair County.)
• Margaret Oswalt wife of Jonathan Rough
• Catherine Oswalt wife of John Fry
• Elizabeth Oswalt widow of Jonathan Snyder
• Mary Oswalt wife of Samuel Weight (sic) 

Since looking at the probate records, I've made some more progress, but I will write about those findings in another post. If you have any additional information on this family, questions or comments please feel free to leave a comment or contact me at jess_history at yahoo dot com. Thanks!

22nd Edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy Posted!

The 22nd edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy has been posted! You can read it here. The topic for the next edition will be a carousel, and will be hosted by Ambar of Still More Genealogy. Submissions for the edition are due on September 19th, and the edition will be published on the 21st. You can submit your article here. Enjoy!

Breakthroughs and Roadblocks In Researching My German Ancestors ...

Although this article is late for the next edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy, I wanted to post on this topic. In the course of doing research into my German ancestors, I've had breakthroughs and roadblocks. Here are some of my experiences:

Breakthroughs

Several of my breakthroughs in my genealogical research has been on lines where I had German ancestors. One of my largest breakthroughs came about when I posted a query on my Kees ancestors, and received a response from a woman in Germany. Although she wasn't related, she had some information on my ancestors, and she kindly shared that information with me. In addition, she also contacted the historical society of the town my Kees ancestor was born in, and shared the information on his ancestors with me. Needless to say, I would not have been able to move back as far as I have in such a short time, if she had not shared that information with me, and I am especially grateful of her help.

Besides providing information on my Kees ancestors, the same lady also provided a little bit of information on Klippel ancestor, and from that information, I was able to locate that ancestor's place of birth. (I did have his marriage record at that time, but I had not had the record transcribed. Thus, I did not know where he was from.) After finding his place of birth, I was able to look-up and order microfilms from his birthplace, and I was able to do more research on my Klippel ancestors.

Other breakthroughs on other branches have been done so far through civil death records and secondary sources. With my Cotta ancestors, I was able to confirm the names of my ancestors' parents, and from there, look up secondary information on them. Most of the secondary literature is in German, so it will take me longer to process the information. That problem, of course, leads to the roadblocks I have encountered in my research.

Roadblocks

As I mention in the previous paragraph, most of the secondary literature on my ancestors is in German, but that has only been a slight problem for me. I have taken several years of German, so the language barrier is not as much of problem for me as it might be for others. Of course, it just takes me longer to process the information, and when I lack the time to read the information, I generally stop the research on my German ancestors and work on another ancestral branch. Most of my roadblocks stem from this lack of time, although I have had problems with the handwriting in primary German documents. When I first started to do research on my German ancestors, I discovered that the handwriting styles were very different from what I was used to, and thus, I wasn't able to transcribe the records. I had to find someone who could transcribe those records for me. After spending time with researching in these primary documents and learning the letters, I am able to make out more of the information in the records. I do still have a little trouble because I am still learning how to read the handwriting, but it is not as much of a problem as it was when I first started.

Outside of those roadblocks, the only other roadblocks I have come across so far happen to deal with not being able to continue researching, whether it is due to the lack of time or I haven't had the chance to order the records I need to research. Since I am in school most of the year, I do not have very much time to do research, and thus, I can't always order all of the records I want to look at because I would not be able to get through all the microfilms I want.

In the case of my German ancestors from Russia, Anton and Caroline, I haven't ordered Anton's naturalization records because I haven't had the time in the past. Of course, it just happens to be my luck that Anton went through the naturalization process in Detroit, and as a result, the card image doesn't list the number for his records. I have held off applying for his records because I would have to pay for a search to find the record number, and then I would have to pay even more to get his naturalization records. (To read more about how Detroit is different, click here.) Thus, I have put off ordering the records because of the expense and lack of time that I have at the moment. Until I can get those records, I have to put off doing any research on that branch because I need to know where in Russia they were born and cannot do any further research until I learn where Anton and Caroline were born or lived in Russia.

A different roadblock that I have encountered is with my Klippel ancestors. As you may remember from what I wrote about my research into the Klippel family in the past few weeks, I have not been able to move back farther on a branch because I cannot locate the marriage record of my ancestors. The church microfilm is missing several years, and in between those years, my ancestors married. I might have to look and see if civil records for those years exist or if the church has a copy of those years; but either way, I don't have the time at the moment to follow up on those possibilities because I am back at school.

With another branch of my German ancestors, I am stuck trying to figure out who the parents of my great-grandfather are, and I am still trying to figure out where and when he was born. Family tradition and different records like his death certificate, World War One draft card, marriage record and census records vary between two different years as to when he was born (not to mention different places of birth), and those two years span about four years. On top of that, family tradition suggests that he was born under a different name and informally adopted. Thus, I'm not completely sure as to where I should go with my research, and with the lack of time, I have put this branch on the back burner because of these problems.

And then, there is the issue of the birthplace of another ancestor. I have the birth date for Carl, but as to where he was born, I just know that it was in Germany. I've uncovered the court document that lists when he became a naturalized citizen, but that record doesn't list a place of birth. All it states is that he came to the country in a certain year, but I haven't been able to find proof of him coming in that year. To make matters even worse, there is another man with the same given and surname as my ancestor who arrives in the country at the same time. Additionally the passenger list that I think has my ancestor on it is from about four years before he claimed to come into the U.S. (Of course, I now suspect that the year of arrival that he gave was incorrect or was the year that he came to Michigan.) If, as I suspect, he came earlier, I cannot find him in the 1880 census, and thus, I have no idea at the moment as to where I should look for other naturalization documents. The only other clue that I have is the inclusion of his relative Fred in the 1894 Michigan state census, but I'm not even sure how Fred is related. The census lists him as Carl's son, but that is impossible due to the fact that it would been biologically impossible for Carl to have a son at the time that Fred was born. The only other option I have is believe that the relationship was put down incorrectly, and that Fred might be either Carl's brother or a cousin. Of course, I don't know how they are related except that there is a connection. I'll have to find the church records where Carl and Anna married, but at the moment, I don't have the time to figure out if those church records might have survived.

So, as you can see, most of my roadblocks are only roadblocks because I lack the time to do my research. Most of these research problems could be solved if I had access to the records, but until I have more time, I probably won't be able to solve all of the problems in one summer. I'll have to settle with trying to break through maybe one or two of these lines when I am out of school the next time. Of course, if anyone has any other ideas as to what I can do with my research, please feel free to leave me a comment. Thanks.

21st Edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy Posted!

The 21st edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy has been posted! You can read it here. The topic for the next edition will be on roadblocks and breakthroughs, and will be hosted by Al of Al's Polish-American Genealogy Research. You can read more information about that edition here. Submissions are due August 8, and the edition will be published on August 15th. Enjoy!

Also I am still looking for a host for two upcoming editions of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy:

• October
• December

I am especially looking for someone to host October's edition. I have not decided yet, but I might host December's edition. Is anyone interested in hosting the October edition? Pleas contact me at jess_history at yahoo dot com. Thanks!