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!

More Records Have Come!

A week or two weeks ago, I ordered some more marriage records from the Cuyahoga County, Ohio archives, and the records came today. I've only looked at the records briefly, but they confirm some of my suspicions from other records. Now, I just have to make some time to enter the information into my genealogy database.

Wedding Belles: A Beautiful Wedding Picture

As you may or may not remember, I wrote about the Henry's in my family that had married women from Canada last year, and a few weeks ago, I found this photograph of one of the Henry's weddings at my grandma's house. This photograph happens to be of the marriage of Henry Klippel to his second wife, Mary Oman, and was taken in Cleveland, Ohio in 1908. Isn't this a beautiful photograph? I am amazed at the quality of this old photograph, and as soon as I saw the picture, I fell in love with it. To me, this picture is very special, and I cannot get over how beautiful it is. I hope you enjoy this photograph as well. Enjoy!

Looking For My German Ancestors: Part 6

In my previous post, I started to write about my research into Anna's ancestry, and I mentioned that I would write about her family's connection to Cleveland, Ohio. I want to continue writing about Anna's family, and I hope to mention her family's connection to that city.

After Anna, her parents and her siblings entered to the U. S. in February of 1864, they eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. Exactly when they did so, I am uncertain at the moment, but I do know that by the 1870 census, they were living in Cleveland. (They might have lived in New Jersey for a couple of years as a few records suggest Anna's brother, Jacob, was born there.) As I mentioned in the earlier post, Anna and her family were living in Cleveland at least until 1876 when her parents are last mentioned in the Cuyahoga County deed records, but what I did not mention was that Anna's older brother, Adolph, continued to live in Cleveland after the rest of the family moved to Saginaw, Michigan. (By the 1880 census, at least, he was living there.) Of course, I do not know why Adolph chose to stay in Cleveland, but he still had family members who remained in the city. Adolph's uncle, William worked as an insurance agent in the city, and land records indicate that they sold and bought land from each other.

Between 1880 and 1894, Adolph and Anna's brother, Jacob, moved back to Cleveland. Exactly when he did, I haven't determined yet, but he had to have been living there by 1894 when he got married. After 1900, their brother, Henry, and sister, Emilia, would also move to Cleveland, although I haven't determined when that was exactly. (And I don't know why they moved back either. It could be possible that they wanted to be near family.) Interestingly, Anna and Carl would move their family to Cleveland for a few years as well, but they eventually returned to Michigan, finally settling in Detroit. Whatever the reasons were for Anna's family to move back to Cleveland, it's probably safe to conclude that they liked living there.

In my next post I will continue to focus on Anna's family and write more about her maternal side of the family. Enjoy!

More Cuyahoga County, Ohio Records - Orders Two and Three ...

Today I received some more records from the Cuyahoga County, Ohio archives that I ordered within the past week-in-a-half to two weeks ago. This happens to be the third time that I ordered records from this archives, and I thought I would talk a little about the records that I ordered in my last two requests. (I did not write about the second batch of records that I ordered when they came in because I was away at school. I did not write about the second batch when I first came home because I did not think about doing so until the other records came today. Plus, I hadn't had very much time to look at the other records until now.)

So, what records did I order in the second batch? Well, I ordered a marriage record, a naturalization record, and a probate file. Unfortunately, the archive was not able to find a probate file for my ancestor, so I was only received the naturalization record and the marriage record. The marriage and naturalization were the same person, my ancestor's youngest son. (As for the naturalization record, as I mentioned in a previous post, I received part of his naturalization record in an earlier request. That naturalization record turned out to be his declaration of intent, and this record I ordered turned out to be the paper that bestowed his citizenship upon him.)

The third batch consisted of five marriage records. Those marriage records were of my ancestor's brothers. Of course, a couple of those marriage records have left me with a few more unanswered questions. I will probably have to order more records to find the answers to my questions. I will let all of you know if I have my answers when I am able to do more research on that branch.

Looking For My German Ancestors - Part 5

Since today is German-American Day, I thought I would honor my German ancestors by posting another article on my continuing research into my German ancestors.

In my previous post, I mentioned the research on what I had been able to find on Fred, Carl's relative and possible brother. I also stated that I wanted to focus on another branch of German ancestors, and for this post, I'll be focusing on Carl's wife's family.

In the early 1880s, Carl married Anna in what was then East Saginaw, Michigan. Anna, like Carl, had been born in Germany, but unlike Carl, Anna had spent most of her life in the United States. She immigrated to the U. S. in the mid-1860s as a young child with her parents, Frederick and Emilia, and her siblings. Although I do not know exactly where Anna's family lived for the first six years (they might have lived in New Jersey), I do know that by the time of the 1870 U. S. census, the family was living in Cleveland, Ohio. Within ten years, the family had moved to the Saginaw, Michigan area where they were living in the 1880 U. S. census. Although I still do not know when they moved to Saginaw, I do know that it had to be after 1876 and before 1880. (In 1876, Frederick and Emilia were last mentioned in a deed, and this is the latest that I have them living in Cleveland at the moment. Of course, I might be able to narrow it down even more, if I am able to look at Cleveland city directories for that time period. At the moment, I have not had a chance to look at those city directories.)

Frederick, like Carl, worked as a baker, and he is lasted listed in the Saginaw city directories in the 1883 edition. By 1887, he is not listed, so I have assumed that he had passed away, as his wife is living with her oldest daughter in that directory. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a death record or probate file for Frederick, so I do not know when he died exactly, and in addition, the 1884 Michigan state census for Saginaw county does not appear to have survived. Thus, I am unable to check to see if he was still alive in 1884 or not. What I do know is that Emilia died in Saginaw in the early-1890s, and it is possible they are buried near each other. Of course, I won't know for sure until I can locate Emilia's grave. I still do not know where she is buried, and I have not yet had a chance to take a look at Saginaw's cemetery records. Hopefully, I'll be able to do so sometime in the future.

Of course, there are also a couple of other records that I have not checked that might help me narrow down my timeline: land records and tax records for Saginaw county. I have not yet check for those records. In my next post, I will explore the connections Anna's family had to Cleveland, Ohio, since many of Anna's siblings and a few of her relatives chose to reside in Cleveland, Ohio. Stay tuned ...

Just Got A Couple of Records in the Mail Today ...

A couple of weeks ago, I sent a request to the Cuyahoga County, Ohio Archives for a death record and a naturalization record, and today, I received them in the mail! (Yes, I was pleasantly surprised. I was expecting my request to take longer.) I have briefly looked over the records I received, and I'm quite excited, even though the records do not list the names of the parents or the birthplace of the persons in the records. Of course, it is still nice to receive records in the mail. I might do an analysis of the records in a future post, but I do not know when I will do so. Anyhow, I'm off to take a closer look at these new records ...

Looking For My German Ancestors: My Research Experiences - Part 1 ...

I did write an earlier post about researching German ancestors for a previous edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy, but it was a fairly brief post. Plus, I wrote the post in terms of generalities. I did not go into detail about my experiences. So, how did I start?

Since my known German ancestors are on my paternal side, I first started out by talking to my paternal grandparents about my ancestors. (Well, actually one is supposed to do that anyway, regardless of ethnic background, but I digress.) From my grandma, I was able to learn the names of her grandparents and the names of two of her grandma's brothers. With that information, I was able to do searches in the censuses, and find the rest of the family. Of course, it also helped that my grandma had a family tree of one of her lines as well. Even though I had that family tree, I still verified the information that was on the tree, and I am glad I did so, as I found several errors on it, especially the portion of the family tree where one of the generations in the U.S was concerned.

After searching for my ancestors in the censuses, the next step for me was to start research in Michigan's vital records. Since I found my ancestors living in Saginaw and Bay counties in the censuses, I decided to start looking for records in those counties. Up at the county buildings for both counties, I was able to find marriage and death records for a few of my ancestors and their siblings. Of course, I did not find all the records that I had hoped to find, and I am still looking for records on my ancestors in this country. In another post, I will post more specifically on records that I collected and still collecting on my ancestors. Stay tuned ...

Have Ancestors That Lived in Cuyahoga County, Ohio?

If you happen to have ancestors who lived in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, you might want to check out the Cuyahoga County Recorder's Office. They have an online database with images of their land records going back to (I believe 1810). You can find the website here.