Entry #32

I have been postponing blogging about some of my most complicated research endeavors. For week #32, I have to tackle one. After all, we only have 20 ancestors more about whom to write.

For years, no single ancestor preoccupied me more than my second great-grandmother, Katherine Wippel. Katherine Wippel was my paternal grandmother’s grandmother. If my Nanny Biermann (Katherine Schatz) ever spoke of her own grandmother, I have no recollection, although my grandmother was clearly named for her. My first knowledge of Katherine Wippel came from a single sheet of paper documenting my Miller (Mueller) family. It listed Andrew Mueller, his wife Katherine and most of their adult children with dates of birth for all. At the bottom it said:

Kate Miller, Maiden Wippel

Reverent L. Theiss

Marriage Slifficat

Ser Slificate

The document gives  “Katharin” Mueller’s date of birth as November 25th, 1847.   I am not sure who wrote this document, which was written on the back of a paper from the G.A.R. Post #5.

I suspect it may have been authored by Katherine Miller Patterson, the second to oldest of the Miller children. It makes sense, because she is not listed. She probably would not list herself, since she already knew her own vital statistics. Everything about the spelling gives the sense that this individual spoke German, although in an uneducated way.

In the mid-1990’s when I began my research into Katherine Wippel, I had no idea where to begin. I could not find her in the 1850 or 1860 censuses in Cincinnati, Ohio, or any other document prior to her marriage. My first break came when I obtained the death record for my great-grandmother, Augusta Miller Schatz. I mistakenly believed that she had been born in Cincinnati, but her place of birth was given as Pomeroy, Ohio. I retrieved my road atlas and located Pomeroy. (Yes, this was back in the day when you used a road atlas for such information rather than a computer!) Knowing that my great-grandmother was born in Pomeroy helped me locate my Miller (Mueller, Müller) family. One of the first records I found was the marriage record for Katherine Wippel and Andrew Miller on 21 October 1866.

I was still unable to find Katherine Wippel, before she married. I found a number of other Wippels in Pomeroy and even a couple of “Catherine” Wippels. They were all the wrong age, though. I contacted several Wippel family researchers. No one knew of my Katherine. The Wippel family of Pomeroy was from Roxheim, Bavaria, and at the head of the family was Johann Wippel and Catharina Dietrich Wippel (the subject of week #27).  Johann died prior to passage to America, so they could not have been her parents. One, researcher informed me that my Katherine could not be part of his wife’s Wippel family. He suggested my Wippel family was an altogether unrelated family of the same name. I investigated. The only other Whipples in southeastern Ohio were from New England and of British heritage. I knew in my heart that my Katherine Wippel came from a German background.

I contacted Monsignor John Wippel, who I was told was THE expert on Wippel genealogy. He corresponded that there were a number of Catherine Wippels in Pomeroy contemporaneous with mine. He was very thoughtful and kind, but indicated that sorting them could be a real problem.  He did not know where my Katherine fit in. I combed the 1850 and 1860 censuses for Meigs County on microfilm, name by name, looking at every Catherine born from 1845 to 1852. I had no success finding her and, to add insult to injury, I still could not find her death record. Eventually, I stumbled across her death notice in Cincinnati. She was indexed under KATE MILLER, not Katherine or even Catherine.  I, then, wrote to Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati (before their records were online). I received her death and burial information and that led to finding her death certificate. I now knew, that my great, great grandmother was known to all as “Kate.”

I put out feelers on the Meigs County genealogy mailing list. There were lots of suggestions, but no one had a definitive answer. I began to feel discouraged. “Kate Wippel,” I shouted to the heavens, “you didn’t just fall off a turnip cart in 1866!”

Many researchers were helpful, but it was Merry Anne Pierson who noticed Catherine (age 11) and Barby Efler (age 9) in the 1860 census in the household of Peter Efler (Effler, Oeffler) (age 25) and his wife Catherine (age 22). Merry Anne wrote to me to point out that these two girls were too old to be the children of Peter and Catherine. There was also a baby in the household who was probably theirs. I began to dissect the Effler household. Peter Effler was really 27 and Catherine was 32, not 22. Most importantly, Peter Effler had married Catherine Wippel on 1 June 1857. Eureka! Catharine Wippel was the mother of my Kate, and Kate had a sister named Barbara! I located an earlier marriage of Catherine Wippl to Charles Wippl on 7 May 1848. Later, I found their divorce record from May 1857.

I have had to make a few assumptions. As I wrote in week #1, Catherine and Charles Wippel were first cousins. I think that Kate, my second great-grandmother, was born in 1848, not 1847. If she had been born in 1847, she would have been conceived in Germany or on the ship to America. It isn’t impossible, but it seems unlikely. I think the 1860 census was right about the ages of the children, even if the enumerator got the adults wrong. Kate Wippel was probably only 17 when she married my great, great grandfather. Kate was brought up as a Roman Catholic and her chosen partner was Lutheran. Kate would have needed parental consent to marry at 17, but not at 18. The confusion over her age may have started with her wedding day.

Kate and Andrew Miller went on the have 10 children. Kate died on Christmas Eve, 1918. She was just one of thousands stricken down by the Great Influenza.

Kate Wippel Miller