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!

Has the Griffin Been Found?

I just learned about a court fight over a shipwreck that might be the Griffin from Brenda's post. For those who don't know, the Griffin was one of the first European-style ships to sink in the Great Lakes in 1679, and since the ship sank, people have been searching for it. At the moment, I have not decided what I think about this story, but I might post my thoughts about this case later.

A Mini-Mystery at the Moment ...

Several weeks ago, I decided to browse through the Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania newspapers that are online again, and this time, I happened to notice an article that I had missed in past searches. Of course, I did not mention this discovery at the time because I was extremely busy with schoolwork, but as you can imagine, this brief article has generated some questions in my mind.

So, what was this article? Well, the article happened to be on court cases that had reached verdicts by the point of the article's printing, and it listed whether or not the defendants in the cases had been found guilty or not. Well, in that list, my ancestor's brother, John Oswalt, happened to be found guilty along with another man of assault and battery of a woman. Unfortunately, the article does not mention any of the facts of the case, but it does list the punishment the men received:

"Com'th vs. Henry Harker and John Oswalt. Indictment for assault and battery on Elizabeth Kyler. Verdict, guilty. Sentence of the Court, that Henry Harker pay a fine of $1.00 and be imprisoned in jail 24 hours - John Oswalt pay a fine of $1.00 and be imprisoned in jail one week, pay costs, &c. ... August 23, 1845."
- Taken from "Proceedings of the Courts of Quarter Sessions and Common Pleas," in the Huntingdon Journal, 27 August 1845, page 2.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting to find this article, but either way, I'm curious as to what the circumstances of the case were. Obviously, I want to obtain the transcript of the case so that I can answer that question, but I also want to obtain that file to see if it might shed any light on the daily life of my Oswalt ancestors. For all I know, there might be some important details on my ancestors and their families, and since I know that some of my Oswalt ancestors were illiterate, this might be one of the few sources that I'll find on my ancestors. Since I'm still up at school, I won't have time to get this court case right away, but I hope to get the file as soon as I get a chance.

And just when I was beginning to think my ancestors were getting boring, I'm thrown another curve ball ...

Blog Changes and Other News ...

I'm playing check-up for the past few days as I realize I have forgotten to mention a few things. First off, I have added a Coming Soon paragraph to the left side of the blog, just above the Genealogy and History Thoughts section. I plan to use the paragraph to list topics for future posts. I do not know if anyone noticed, but I created that section earlier this week. Hopefully, I will get to some of the posts that I want to write for this month and in the future.

I also noticed a few days ago on the Rochester Area Research Aides blog that there was a post on an index of names in old Rochester newspapers recently posted on the Monroe county, New York library website. The indexes are split up into groups of numbers and into two time periods. The first time period is from 1818 to 1850, and the second period is from 1851 to 1897. Since my Havens ancestors were in Rochester, New York around 1850, I decided to take a look at the indexes, and I found a couple things that might help me in my research. (I'll post on those index findings in a future post.)

In addition to forgetting to mention the items above, I forgot to mention that FamilySearch Lab's Record Search has added a couple more databases to their site. They added civil vital records for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and a census for Buenos Aires, Argentina last week. In addition, the site has been adding more names to the 1850, 1860 and 1870 U.S. censuses over the past few days.

Finally! I've gotten around to posting this news!

57th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy Posted!

The 57th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy has been posted! You can read the edition here. The topic for the next edition will be:

" Halloween Hauntings... Fact or Fiction? We're going to have some fun with the Carnival of Genealogy this time around. Halloween is coming up in a few weeks. In keeping with the spirit of the season, write a story about or including one of your ancestors. It can be fact or fiction. Don't tell which it is (until after October 15 when the COG is published), let your readers guess. We should all get some great comments as readers try to determine if our Halloween genea-story is fact or fiction! Was your ggg grandmother a witch? Did you live in a haunted house when you were growing up? Were there bats in Aunt Betty's belfry? Did you ever meet up with a ghost when you were looking for an ancestor's grave? See if you can stump us! The deadline for submissions is October 15th.

To All COG Participants: Please use a descriptive phrase in the title of any articles you plan to submit and/or write a brief description/introduction to your articles in the "comment" box of the blogcarnival submission form. This will give readers an idea of what you've written about and hopefully interest them in clicking on your link. Introductions for your articles will not be provided for you due to the volume of articles submitted. Thank you!"

Enjoy!

Extra! Extra!: My Ancestors In The News ...

The topic for this upcoming edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is on finding ancestors in the newspapers. Have I found any of my ancestors listed in the local newspapers where my ancestors lived? Yes, but I wish my ancestors had appeared in those newspapers more than they actually did. In most cases, my ancestors were mentioned in the newspapers either when they got married or when they died. Only on a few occasions did my ancestors get mentioned in the news for something other than getting married or having passed away.

As I stated before, most of the times that my ancestors were mentioned in the newspapers was due to their dying. Usually, their deaths would be given maybe a line or two in a death notice section of the local paper. Very little information was given for these ancestors who died in the Nineteenth Century. For my ancestors who died in Detroit in the Twentieth Century, their deaths were listed under the death notice section (Obits were different, apparently.). Although these were not obituaries, these death notices listed the name of their spouse, the that they lived at address, their children, the time and date of the funeral, and and if there were any other relatives living besides the children. As for the death notices of other distant relatives, the listing of names of the decedent's survivors has helped me sort out who each person's children were, especially in the case of my ancestors, Anton and Caroline, and their relatives, where several of the survivors shared the same names. In short, these death notices provided much more detail than their Nineteenth Century counterparts.

Of course, that does not mean that those older death notices did not contain clues. In one death notice, an alternative cause of death was given that was completely different from the cause of death listed in his death registration. As you may remember, I wrote about my ancestor's remarriage to a woman young enough to pass for his daughter last year; however, I did not mention the cause of his death. Or at least the two different causes of death that I have. Jacob Detwiler's death registration lists that he died on 21 December 1879 from lung fever. (In a quick search done on the internet of archaic medical terms, I came upon this site, and it lists lung fever was a term for pneumonia.) The death notice in the local newspaper, however, gives his date of death as 22 December 1879 and states he died from complications due to a fall at his home the week before. So, now the question becomes, "Which one is correct?" The newspaper entry was published within a few days after his death since it mentioned the name of the minister who would be conducting the funeral service. As for the death register, one of the Librarians working in the genealogy section of the Library of Michigan told me that the deaths were collected once a year at that time, and when I looked back at the date the death record was entered, I realized it was entered about six months or so after the his death. So, it could easily be that the death registration is incorrect. Or the possibility could be that both the death notice and registration were correct. As for the date, Jacob could have passed away in the night, and that would explain why there are two death dates given. As for the cause of death, the only reasonable conclusion I can make - and I'm speculating about this - is that Jacob could have injured himself in an accident, and while he was trying to recover from his injuries, he could have very easily developed pneumonia. Jacob was in his sixties when he died, so it would not be to difficult to believe that an old, weakened man had died of pneumonia after being injured.Of course, I cannot say exactly for sure, if one could find that much from a death notice in most cases, but in my case, that has been been the most information that I have gotten out of a death notice.

Another way I have been able to determine when an ancestor has died is through the probate notices listed in the newspapers. Of course, the probate notice will not give me the date of an ancestor's death, but it will help me narrow done when he or she may have died. This notice will also list where this ancestor died, who was managing the estate, and when the noticed was first published. (There will be a date in the lower corner that gives when the notice was submitted or first printed in the paper.)

As for marriage notices, I have not been able to get any more information than the names of the couple who were married, who married them, when and where they were married, and the residences of the couple. At the most, the marriage will not take up much more space than a sentence with all of the information listed in that sentence. (Yes, you read that correctly. One sentence.) Of course, with the marriage notices there are usually more than just one marriage listed in that section. Sometimes the notice might list the father of the bride, but so far, I have not been that lucky. I have had to use other sources to determine the who parents of the couple were.

As for the few other times that I have found my ancestors mentioned in the news, I really only have two examples. (Well, three if I count one of my ancestor's siblings.) In one of those cases, I found my ancestor listed in a newspaper report of those who had won prizes at the county fair (or festival). Apparently, my ancestor had entered one of his animals in one of the contests, and he won the first prize in the category of best 2-year old cow (at least from what I can remember off the top of my head). The article also listed the prize he won, and in his case, his prize was two dollars. (For the moment, I'm going to guess that a two dollar prize was a pretty good one in the 1860s.) Another time I found an ancestor's younger brother listed in the newspaper along with their uncle. This article was also published in the 1860s, and it listed the names of the men who had enlisted in a volunteer regiment, in this case, the 25th Michigan Volunteer Infantry. Of course, it was just a listing of the local men who had enlisted, but still, if I had not already found information on these two men's service in the Civil War, this newspaper article would have been a clue. As for my last example, this newspaper article deals with Civil War veterans, but it is much more intriguing for me. The article mentions the names of the members of the Rockford, Illinois delegation to elect the new president of the G. A. R. in 1894:

" ... The Rockford delegation, headed by Col. Lawler, consisted of the
following: G. S. Roper, C. C. Jones, J. H. Sherrett, W. D. McAffee, T. W. Cole,
G. A. Sealey, N. C. Burroughs, H. D. Potter, Jeff Abbott, J. T. Savage, W. D. E.
Andrus, David Sautell, C. F. Briggs, James Williams, M. J. Burroughs, B. F.
Butler, O. J. Cummings, Adam Oswalt, C. W. Butler, C. H. D. Noel, J. D. Norris,
... [and many others]" -Taken from the Chicago Daily, 10 September 1894, page 1.

For me, I find this piece of information intriguing because it was something I did not expect to find. I knew my ancestor, Adam, had lived in Rockford, Illinois from the late-1880s to the late-1890s from his Civil War pension file, but I did not know he participated in the G. A. R. (At least I could not find any records of his participation in any of the Michigan branches in the records held by the state archives of Michigan.) For me, this might be another way for me to find out more information on Adam. If anyone knows of any Rockford sources on the G. A. R. or newspapers about this delegation, please let me know. Thanks.

So, as you can see, I have found some information on my ancestors and possible hints for other areas to do research on my ancestors. Of course, I wish my ancestors had been mentioned more in the newspapers, but I guess what I have so far is pretty good.

56th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy Posted!

The 56th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy has been posted, and since this edition is quite large, it has been split up into two parts. You can read Part One here and Part Two here. The topic for the next edition will be on:

"I read it in the news! Newspapers can be a wonderful source of family history information. Share some aspect about your family history that you learned about in a newspaper. Articles, advertisements, obituaries, classified ads, photos... all are fair game if they appeared in a newspaper. What did you learn about your family from this information? Was the information accurate? How did you learn about this information... online search? Perusing old newspapers? A clipping saved by a relative? Fill us in on your family scoops... who in your family was in the news? The deadline for submissions is October 1st. The next edition will be hosted at the Creative Gene blog.

"To All COG Participants: Please use a descriptive phrase in the title of any articles you plan to submit and/or write a brief description/introduction to your articles in the "comment" box of the blog carnival submission form. This will give readers an idea of what you've written about and hopefully interest them in clicking on your link. Introductions for your articles will not be provided for you due to the volume of articles submitted. Thank you!"

Enjoy!