My Search for the Past | Sharing my genealogical research into my family and my husband's family including Biermann, Schatz, Lindner, Maier, Hartley, Sigmund, Brown and allied surnames.

Fred Schatz – Is He John’s Half-Brother? – 52 Ancestors #9

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on March 6, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Biermann

I am now caught up to Week 9 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks!

Entry #9

Two days ago I posted about my great, great-grandfather John Schatz. I made, what I considered to be, a huge discovery last night! I have been speculating for a long time that my Johann “John” Schatz (b. abt 1818) may have been Johann Friedrich Heinrich Schatz, the son of Friedrich David Schatz and Friederica Catharina Diederica Ruwolt, b. 17 Jan 1818, in Gerdeshagen near Satow, Mecklenburg-Schwerin. I have found this Johann with his mother (the father is absent) in the 1819 census in Satow. According to assistance I received from Fritz Kruse, who moderates the Mecklenburg Genealogy Facebook group, Diederica Ruwolt died on 10 Nov 1819. After that, the family moved from the parish. Another source informed me that Friedrich David Schatz lived until 1833.

Satow Parish record

During my quest to identify Johann Schatz’ family, I have wondered if John could be related to Fred C. Schatz (b. 1821 in Mecklenburg). Both men emigrated to Cincinnati, Ohio in the 1850’s, although not together. Fred married Louise Seaman, widow of Friedrich Felix sometime before 1880. They have a blended household of Schatz and Felix children in the 1880 Cincinnati census. Fred Schatz was previously married to Sophia Seeman. This surname came from Fred’s son Charles’ death certificate. I thought perhaps the informant was confused and had mixed up Charles’ birth mother with his step-mother, Louise Seaman.

What was my exciting find last night? I located an LDS marriage record for Fred Schatz’s first marriage to Anna Sophia Louise Seemann. So, Fred was married to two different women with the surname Seemann, although they had different parents and are not sisters.

Friedrich Christoph Schatz, “Germany Marriages, 1558-1929”

Name: Friedrich Christoph Schatz

Spouse’s Name: Anna Sophia Louise Seeman

Event Date: 19 Aug 1851

Event Place: Hagenow (Ag. Hagenow) , Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany

Father’s Name: Friedrich David Schatz

Mother’s Name:

Spouse’s Father’s Name: Georg Wilh. Seemann

Spouse’s Mother’s Name:

Indexing Project (Batch) Number: I04099-6

System Origin: Germany-EASy

GS Film number: 69201

Reference ID: 205

Sources

“Deutschland, Heiraten 1558-1929,” index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NZD3-JV2 : accessed 06 Mar 2014), Friedrich Christoph Schatz and Anna Sophia Louise Seeman, 19 Aug 1851; citing Hagenow (Ag. Hagenow), Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany; FHL microfilm 69201.

The most exciting part is that it shows Friedrich David Schatz as Fred Schatz’s father. This would make Johann his half-brother (assuming I have the correct Johann Schatz identified). On the plus side, Schatz is not a very common surname in Mecklenburg and David is not a very common forename.

I looked at the Cincinnati German Cemetery (Walnut Hills) burial records and now clearly see that Loiuse Seemann was buried as Loiuse Felix with her first husband, and Fred Schatz was buried with his first wife, Sophia Seeman. They are all in the same burial plot together! This is the same cemetery where John and Friedrika Schatz are buried, as well. Walnut Hill’s (German Protestant) Cemetery burials for Section1, Lot 651:

I still need to find the emigration records for Fred and Sophia. I also wonder why the 1860 U.S. Federal Census shows them as being born in Mecklenburg-Strelitz. This seems to contradict the marriage record. I also need to see if I can find any record of Wilhelmine Schatz who was supposed to be a sister of John. Anyway, I now need to modify my research plan, order some films from the FHC, but I have a good feeling that I am about to have a major breakthrough on my Schatz family!

PS – If you have Mecklenburg family and do Facebook, I encourage you to join the Mecklenburg Germany Genealogy group.

Tags: Cincinnati, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Ruwolt, Schatz, Seemann Permalink

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John Schatz – From Mecklenburg Serf to Dairyman – 52 Ancestors #8

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on March 4, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Biermann

Entry #8

Johann “John” Schatz and Friedrika Schwern emigrated from Bützow in the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin to Cincinnati, Ohio, leaving their homeland on May 16, 1854, and arriving in New York on July 3, 1854. Johann traveled on the ship Sir Robert Peel with Friedrika, their infant child, Carl, and Wilhelmine Schatz, who is listed on the Hamburg Passenger List as Johann’s sister. Johann and Friedrika were my great, great-grandparents. Johann and Friedrika were listed on the ship’s passenger list as farmers and on the Hamburg Passenger Lists as an “arbeiter” or worker. This, combined with the fact that they were unmarried, yet had a child, speaks volumes about their social status in Mecklenburg. Johann and Friedrika were peasants, most likely impoverished ones, at that.

Mecklenburg had some of the worst living conditions in Western Europe during the 1800’s. A primitive feudal system, which began soon after the close of the Thirty Years War and lasted until 1820, put serfs at the mercy of the noble landowners. Most peasants were landless, but even those with property usually had obligations to the large estate owners; they were often required to work the landlord’s fields as well as their own. Carol Gohsman Bowen notes that the landless peasants were entirely dependant on the nobles who could even buy and sell them with or without their property. In 1820, serfdom was abolished. Rather than improving the lot of the peasants, economic conditions became worse. Landowners were no longer responsible for the support of their workers, as meager as it had been. Peasants who were old or physically unable to work were dismissed and many former serfs roamed from place to place as itinerant day workers. Further, a couple needed the permission of the local nobility to marry and that came under the condition that the man be able to prove that he could support a wife and family. On her website, Understanding Your Ancestor’s Life, Leslie Albrecht Huber reports that after 1820 nearly twenty percent of Mecklenburg births were illegitimate.

(More about the history of Mecklenburg from the sources cited is available here and here.)

Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Most likely Johann Schatz was not able to receive permission to marry Friedrika and their eldest son, Carl (Charles), was born out of wedlock. Marrying seems to have been one of the first orders of business for John and Friedrika after establishing themselves in Cincinnati. They married there on September 4, 1854, just two months after arriving in the United States.

It would be easy to romanticize why my Mecklenburg ancestors came to this land, but it is just as likely that the reasons were economic as much as for love. Once in the United States, Johann permanently became John. He began to earn a living as a farm worker, but soon operated a small dairy on Delhi Pike in Sedamsville, part of the 21^st Ward of Cincinnati. My mental picture of John is that he may have been hard-headed and difficult to get along with, especially if you were his neighbor. It seems that John was inclined to dispose of his cow manure by shoveling it into Boldface Creek, and habit that landed him in Court in 1874. His neighbors H.J. Wipper, Oliver Champlin and F.G. Frohmeyer sought an injunction against him for his practice. The creek, they claimed, had insufficient flow at certain times of the year to remove the filth and the stench created a nuisance that prevented their enjoyment of their homes. They further alleged that the dairyman was now deliberately allowing the waste to accumulate on his property since the suit began, implying that my great, great-grandfather was deliberately acting with retribution in mind. John testified that he kept from 30 to 50 cows in such a way as to provide healthy and clean milk to his customers; nevertheless, the court found for the plaintiffs and ordered John to dig a tank on his land, line it with brick or stone, cover it, and cement it so that its contents would not escape into the creek. The offal was to be placed in the tank on a daily basis. (Tuesday, December 15, 1874; paper: Cincinnati Daily Gazette (Cincinnati, OH); page: 3.)

Two years later, John Schatz became the plaintiff against a man named Patrick Bean in an attempt to recover damages from an accident in which the horse from his milk wagon was killed and one of his sons injured. John believed that Bean had caused the accident by stringing a line across the road. The verdict was found in favor of the defendant, but a week later my ancestor was back in court with charges of bribery against the defendant. Those charges were not sustained, but two of the jurors were found to be disreputable and a new trial was granted. I have not yet learned the outcome of the retrial.

John and Friedrika raised eight children to adulthood, including my great-grandfather, Henry, who was the youngest of the brood. I believe that the land that had been John’s dairy is the same place my dad refers to as “the farm” where he lived as a child. John Schatz must have felt very empowered to be a landowner who could sue and be sued after beginning life as a peasant in Meckelnburg! John Schatz died on May 4, 1899.

Tags: Bützow, Cincinnati, Johann Schatz, John Schatz, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Schatz, Sedamsville Permalink

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Martha Sutcliffe Hartley – Was She a Bigamist? – 52 Ancestors #7

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on February 27, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Hartley

February 26, 2014

Entry #7

Yesterday, I mentioned Martha Sutcliffe Hartley, wife of transported convicted, William Hartley. Martha, it seems, is colorful enough to deserve a few paragraphs of her own. As we now know, her first husband was convicted of feloniously possessing forged bank notes. He may also have had a criminal history that included larceny and fraud. It is difficult to sort him out from the many other William Hartleys living in the vicinity of Bradford, Yorkshire, in the early 1800’s.

Martha could not have had an easy time of it after her husband was sent to Van Diemen’s Land for 14 years. She was not only a mother to six children, but Frederick would have been just 9 months old when his father was arrested and hauled off to jail. This means that Frederick never knew his father. Martha, like so many women in her circumstances, had to make a living as a weaver. Most likely, all of children went to work as soon as they were able to do anything useful.

As I mentioned before, Martha Hartley married James Garth on March 1, 1838. She represented herself as a widow. James was 10 years her junior and a widower with four children of his own. How did Martha manage to remarry without being considered a bigamist? I wondered if there were any special laws that may have allowed Martha to remarry while her husband was still alive, especially considering his absence.

Indeed, there was law that could have released her from her marriage vows: “An Act to restrain all Persons from Marriage until their former Wives and former Husbands be dead [1604.]” The pertinent part for Martha could have been:

Section 2, II states “II. Provided always, That this Act, nor any Thing therein contained, shall extend to any Person or Persons whose Husband or Wife shall be continually remaining beyond the Seas by the Space of seven Years together, or whose Husband or Wife shall absent him or herself the one from the other by the Space of seven Years together, in any Parts within his Majesty’s Dominions, the one of them not knowing the other to be living within that Time.”

In other words, Martha would have been free to marry after seven years. But look at her marriage certificate:

Martha remarried at five years and four months, far ahead of the allowable waiting period that would have annulled her first marriage. Then by 1851, Martha was living separate from James Garth. He still called himself married in the census, but Martha was once again purporting herself to be a widow. She was working as a power loom weaver in a factory at the time.

I think Martha Hartley must have been something special. When she remarried, she was able to attract a much younger man. If nothing else, she seems to have been a gutsy woman. At the age of 63, she embarked on a voyage to Australia, which must have taken some courage.

The evidence seems to indicate that Martha was a bigamist. Who know? Perhaps she really thought that her first husband was dead. The irony of Martha’s conjugal status is that bigamy was a crime that was subject to punishment by transportation!

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William Hartley – A Convict in the Family – 52 Ancestors #6

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on February 22, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Hartley

Entry #6

When my husband, Gary, and I married over 30 years ago, it was only natural that I would take an interest in his family history, especially since I was adopting the surname “Hartley” as my own. Someone in the family had already made a nice start on the family tree, which was a big help to my later endeavors. One of the interesting family stories was that William and Martha Hartley, Gary’s 3x great-grandparents, had died in Melbourne, Australia. It was told that they emigrated from Yorkshire, England, to Victoria in 1858. Since their youngest son, Frederick, had relocated from Yorkshire to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1853, this stood out as a bit of an anomaly. I asked myself the question, why would a couple, each in of them in their sixties, take up a new life in such a distant and difficult land? They already had at least one son in America. I fully expected to find that another child had emigrated to Australia and thought I’d find one of Frederick’s siblings in Melbourne. It took years of research before a very different story unfolded.

William Hartley was born on September 14, 1794, in Thornton, near Bradford, England. His father, Thomas Hartley, and his mother, Hannah Charnock Hartley, were the parents of at least six children. They were Methodist and members of Kipping Independent Wesleyan Chapel in Thornton. William married Martha Sutcliffe on February 20, 1814, in Bradford Cathedral. All persons practicing a Non-Conformist religion, as they did, were required to have their marriages solemnized by the Church of England. William and Martha had six children in 17 years. Frederick, my husband’s great, great-grandfather was the last child, born in 1831. Most of my husband’s family were weavers by trade, but for some reason, William Hartley entered the profession of stonemason.

As one might expect, I used the 1841 and 1851 censuses as tools to help reconstruct their lives. I was thrown by what I discovered. I could not find William and Martha together in either census, so I decided to look for Frederick. It was easy to find Frederick in the 1851 census along with his widowed mother, Martha, living in Horton. Frederick’s future wife, Mary Ann Hainsworth, was enumerated in the household as a “visitor,” so there was no doubt I had found the right family.

1851 Census for Great Horton Source Citation Class: HO107; Piece: 2310; Folio: 10; Page: 13; GSU roll: 87524-87525

Wait a minute…Martha was a widow? Was the family story about William and Martha dying in Australia a myth?

I backtracked to 1841 and found Frederick Hartley in Thornton in the household of James Garth and there was Martha…Martha Garth to be precise. Right next door was Joseph Hartley, William’s youngest brother.

Martha Garth in 1841 Census for Thornton – Source Citation
Class: HO107; Piece: 1297; Book: 7; Civil Parish: Thornton; County: Yorkshire; Enumeration District: 4; Folio: 6; Page: 4; Line: 14; GSU roll: 464257

Another search uncovered a marriage record for Martha Hartley and James Garth. Martha was a “widow” at the time of her marriage.

West Yorkshire Archive Service; Wakefield, Yorkshire, England; Yorkshire Parish Records; Old Reference Number: Marriage James Garth and Martha Sutcliffe Hartley - 40D90/1/3/17; New Reference Number: BDP14

Marriage James Garth and Martha Sutcliffe Hartley – West Yorkshire Archive Service; Wakefield, Yorkshire, England; Yorkshire Parish Records; Old Reference Number: 40D90/1/3/17; New Reference Number: BDP14

I could have stopped looking there, but the family story seemed credible; it even included an address – 80 Rose Street, Fitzroy – a neighborhood of Melbourne. At this point, I decided to look for records in Melbourne. I was able to find William Hartley in the Melbourne city directories for multiple years. Later, I found listings for Martha, widow of William.

Where was William during all the missing years? In one of my searches I came across a William Hartley of Ovenden who was convicted of trying to pass forged bank notes. Could this possibly be the same William Hartley?

From the calendar of felons: Hartley, William, age 38, Ovenden, 27 August 1832:

William Hartley, late of Ovenden, in the west-riding, builder, charged on the oaths of William Brigg, and others, with having in his possession, at Bradford, in the said riding, on 25th day of July last, two forged and counterfeited bank of England notes, purporting to be notes of the Manchester branch of the bank of England, for payment of five pounds each, with intent to utter the same.

Guilty of feloniously having in his possession a forged bank of England note – to be severally transported beyond the seas for the term of fourteen years.

William, it seems had gone to the Royal Oak Inn to try to change his bogus notes, but the Constable and his deputy were waiting for him. During the arrest, William tried to swallow the forgeries, but the law managed to restrain him from destroying the evidence!

William Hartley – Leeds Intelligencer September 06, 1832

It is possible that William was a repeat offender. He was described as belonging to a “bad gang.” William Hartley was transported on the ship Surrey on November 19, 1832, and arrived in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) on April 7, 1833.

The Convict Ship Surrey

I wrote to the archives in Victoria and received an entire packet consisting of William Hartley’s convict file. It named his wife, Martha, and mentioned his children. At that point, the story became clear. Gary’s great, great, great-grandfather was an Australian convict!

The convict files tell us a lot about William, including a physical description, which was provided for each convict. At age 36, William Hartley was 5 feet, 6-1/2 inches tall with a dark complexion, hazel eyes, brown hair and dark red whiskers. He was described as having an oval head with dark brown eyebrows on a low, retreating forehead. His nose was “sharp,” his mouth “M.W.” and his chin “large.”

William was sentenced to hard labor on the road. He ran away several times “to work for himself.” He was sometimes drunk. Despite this, William was given a ticket of leave on April 26, 1842. Finally, he received his certificate of freedom (often referred to as a “pardon”) in 1846.

William Hartley did not return to England. It isn’t known yet what William did immediately following being freed, but around 1849 he moved on to Victoria. By 1857 he had became a freeholder on Rose Street in Fitzroy, Melbourne, where he remained until his death. There are lots of minor details left to fill in. There was a William Hartley of Fitzroy who was charged with operating an illegal still. He was acquitted. Was this Gary’s forebear?

In 1858 Martha Sutcliffe Hartley joined William on Rose Street after a presumed separation of 26 years. It is not clear as to the circumstances of the reunion. Did William write to Martha and ask her to come to Australia, or did she make the trip without advance notice? Martha traveled on the Oceanica, classified on the ship’s passenger list as a “spinster.” After years of calling herself a widow, it is strange that she represented herself as being single. Was she keeping her options open in case William did not welcome her with open arms? At any rate, William and Martha Hartely spent their final years together. William died in Melbourne on November 26, 1874. Martha died in 1880.

The family legend was almost true. William and Martha did both die in Australia. The family just chose to forget a few minor details about forgery and bigamy.

Source Information:

Ancestry.com. 1841 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc, 2010. Original data: Census Returns of England and Wales, 1841. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1841. Data imaged from the National Archives, London, England.

Ancestry.com. 1851 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. Original data: Census Returns of England and Wales, 1851. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1851. Data imaged from the National Archives, London, England.

Ancestry.com. West Yorkshire, England, Marriages and Banns, 1813-1935 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data: Yorkshire Parish Records. West Yorkshire Archive Service: Leeds, England.

Tags: Australian convict, Surrey II, William Hartley Permalink

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William Anthony Maier – Why is My Uncle Wearing a Dress? 52 Ancestors #5

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on February 21, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Lindner

Entry #5

This is my fifth post for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. I hope it will be a catch-up post. So, here is an interesting picture of “Uncle Will,” my grandmother’s youngest brother (my grand-uncle).

So, why is uncle Will wearing a dress, and a wig and makeup? The short answer is that I don’t really know. Uncle Will was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1900; from the look of it, he was a young man at the time this photo was taken, so it was probably from between 1915-1925. My dad saw this photo and made a few unkind remarks about the fact that Will never married. For this post, I decided to explore the social climate of the times in order to put this picture into context.

What I learned is that female impersonation was a big part of Vaudeville. In “The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville,” Anthony Slide notes that “female impersonation is as old as the theatre itself.” (Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2012, p. 172). He goes on to say that in American popular entertainment, it dates back to nineteenth century minstrel shows. Typically, the men involved in female impersonation were very careful to present themselves as being quite masculine when offstage. The 1930’s, however, saw a decline in the popularity of this genre.

The demise of Vaudeville is coincidental to the demise of female impersonation. The 1930’s was a decade in which Americans for the first time became more aware of homosexuality which, of course, equates with female impersonation. To most Americans of that generation, homosexuality was frightening and had no place in popular entertainment. Homosexuality and female impersonation went underground for a couple of decades or more (Slide, p. 174).

I have another interesting photo of Uncle Will where he is in costume. This one has the feel of a “still” shot from a play. Will portrays a young Christopher Columbus to an unidentified Queen Isabella.

I also have a few photos of my grandmother, Alma Maier Lindner, dressed in costume. I do not know if these related to a special occasion or if there is another explanation.

Uncle Will’s costumed appearances in my family memorabilia do not fit with his other persona. By profession, Uncle Will was a clerk for the printing trade. In the 1930 U.S. Census, he was listed as the assistant manager for his company.

And, why did Uncle Will never marry? We know that it was not uncommon for one child in a family (male or female) to remain single, as they took on the responsibility of caring for their elderly parents. His mother, Julia Stephan Maier lived until 1948 to the age of 91. Will would have been 48 by the time that she passed away. Uncle Will appears to have lived at 226 Emming Street with his mother and father most of his life, and city directories show that he continued to reside there after his mother’s death.

I would love to know more about Uncle Will and if he attempted to pursue an acting career. I will update this blog if I learn more.

Tags: Cincinnati, Maier, William Anthony Maier Permalink

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Mary Jackson Campbell – It Took an Act of Congress – 52 Ancestors #4

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on February 19, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Sigmund

Entry #4

If you think that government red tape is something invented in our generation, think again. In fact, it certainly predates the last century. Consider my husband’s fifth great-grandmother, Mary Jackson Campbell. Her husband, John Campbell, fought for with the Colonials in the American Revolution, yet proving his service became an ordeal that lasted for nearly 15 years.

John Campbell was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1750 and married Mary Jackson of Baltimore in 1771. We do not know much about Mary Campbell prior to her struggle with the United States government, but she and John appear to have moved between making their home in Baltimore and Philadelphia. John Campbell died in 1803 at the age of 48. He seems not to have been eligible for a pension for his service at the time of his death, but by an Act of Congress in 1832, military pension eligibility was greatly expanded. Further legislation in 1836 extended benefits to certain widows whose husband’s may have been eligible under the 1832 law. Mary Campbell must have been hopeful that she would now be able to receive her husband’s pension, but it was not to be. The problem was that Mary could not prove her claim that her husband had legitimately served. What remains to tell Mary’s story is about 50 pages of declarations, supporting documentation and correspondence generated in her quest to get the pension she believed was due to her.

The first declaration in the file is from January 1837. It states that Mary Campbell first attempted to apply to the Legislature of Pennsylvania for relief in December 1831; she was upwards of seventy-three years of age. At that time she procured an affidavit from Caleb P. Bennett, the former Governor of the State of Delaware, to support her claim. Governor Bennett was the only surviving Revolutionary War soldier of her acquaintance who was also familiar with her husband’s service. Governor Bennett had subsequently died, though.

The first difficulty was that Mary Campbell could not produce a military discharge for John. “She recollects that her said husband had his discharge, but what has become of it, she is now unable to say; she believes it was burnt along with some other papers many years ago, deemed useless.”

Mary is usually described as infirm and feeble. In one declaration Mary refers to herself as poor and infirm with no means of livelihood except by her needle and the assistance of her friends. She had no property, real or personal, except for a few articles of furniture in her room. On March 3, 1837, Mary received a response from the War Department stating that they had no record of the company or regiment of Captain George Latimore under which John Campbell claimed service. Further, the widow was told that her claim before a Justice of the Peace was not valid; she would need to make a new declaration before a Judge of Record and prove in which regiment her husband had served. Several years dragged by…

Mary Campbell seems to have had one ace up her sleeve. She was assisted in her application by her grandson, John Hull Campbell, Philadelphia attorney-at-law. Sometime in 1839, John H. Campbell withdrew his grandmother’s petition, stating that they could offer no additional proof of her husband’s service. In 1842, though, the matter was put before the United States Congress. In what seems like classic bureaucratic bungling, the pension office made a formal recommendation to Congress that the claim of Mary Campbell be rejected “on the ground that there was no evidence that Captain Larmore, under whom she alleges her husband served, was ever in the army.” The petition for a pension was again denied.

Finally, in 1846, Mary made another petition to Congress. The Committee on Revolutionary Pensions corrected that Captain Latimore, not Larmore, was John Campbell’s superior officer. (At no point did the pension declarations say “Larmore.”) Congress accepted that Governor Bennett’s affidavit was credible – he had served with John Campbell at the Battle of Staten Island. Mary Campbell was awarded her pension of $30 per year by Special Act of Congress on August 8, 1846. She was 94 at the time.

Mary Campbell only lived another year and a half. She died on February 17, 1848, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I have not yet located the burial places for either John or Mary.

Tags: John Campbell, Revolutionary War Pension Permalink

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Marie Kessler Lindner – A Terrible Way to Die – 52 Ancestors #3

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on February 12, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Lindner

February 10, 2014

Entry #3

There was no question in my mind who I should select as my subject ancestor for the second week of February. Anna Marie Kessler Lindner was my great grandmother and she died in Dresden, Saxony, Germany, on February 13, 1945 – 69 years ago on Thursday. If that date rings a bell, it was the first day of the infamous Allied Forces fire bombing of the city that was known as the “Florence of the Elbe.”

Anna Marie Kessler Lindner and Emil Heinrich Max Lindner

Granted, I am interested in Marie, as she was called, for more reasons than the way she died. Marie represents the shortest branch of my personal tree; and, this is sad since I had ample opportunity to ask my grandfather about his mother and her parents. I have a photo of her parents, identified as “Mom L’s mother and father,” but, sorrowfully, no names are included. Hand-printed around the corner from the i.d. is the place name, “Freiberg, Saxony.” Since the photo was taken in Dresden, I think this is intended to mean that Marie’s parents were from Freiberg. I just regret that I do not know their names.

Marie Kessler was born in Freiberg, Saxony, on November 29, 1861. She married Emil Max Heinrich Lindner in 1887. I am told that her insurmountable fear of sailing is the reason that my grandfather, Richard Max Otto Lindner, was born in Germany instead of the United States. Max Lindner traveled throughout Europe as a young man and then sailed to the United States in 1885. He was listed on the passenger list as a tourist. He did not stay in the US, but returned to Germany to marry Marie. Marie, it is said, was deathly afraid of crossing the ocean. The irony is that she may have been spared a horrific death if she had braved an ocean voyage.

My grandfather and his second wife, Effie Daughters Lindner, traveled to Dresden from Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1937 to celebrate Max and Marie’s 50th wedding anniversary. My Aunt Marian has said that Effie did not think Marie liked her very well. Marian says she has the impression that Marie was rather stern, but she said that this may just have been a matter of cultural differences. Marie doesn’t seem overly stern to me in her photos. I usually see a little trace of a smile on her lips. I love the family photo of the anniversary dinner with everyone gathered together for what must for one of the last times before World War II changed everything.

Max Lindner died before the bombing of Dresden. Marie was left alone to face a tragic death. My mother told me when I was a little girl that Marie died in a basement trying to shelter from the air raid. We would talk about the horrors of the war and the atrocities of the Nazi regime. Mom did not make any excuses for what Hitler did, but she was saddened that Marie was a victim of the Allied attack. This story left an indelible impression on my young mind. I never stopped grieving for Marie, even though I did not know her. My mother also commented that women should be the leaders of nations. If they were, she believed there would be no war.

It wasn’t until I was much older that I learned we probably don’t really know how Marie met her end. It probably was not as simple as dying in the ruins of a basement. The bombing created a firestorm that defies description. There are images of the aftermath in Dresden that are appalling. Just a warning – some are pretty graphic, but I believe that they are necessary to help tell Marie’s story.

Anna Marie Kessler Lindner died a terrible death – one that one that she, like so many others caught in war, did not deserve.

Tags: Anna Marie Kessler Lindner, Dresden, Emil Max Heinrich Lindner, Lindner, Marie Lindner, Max Lindner, Richard Max Otto Lindner Permalink

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Tante Frieda (Frieda Pueschel) – 52 Ancestors #2

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on February 4, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Lindner

February 4, 2014

Entry #2

Tante Frieda may seem like an odd choice for the second of my 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. With Frieda, I am already choosing someone who is technically not an ancestor. Tante is German for “aunt.” Until last week, I did not even know Tante Frieda’s last name. My immediate family is not large. My mother had just one sister, Marian, who is now 92 years old and as sharp as a tack. She has always been a wealth of knowledge about my maternal side of the family, so I enjoy having long phone conversations with her as time allows. I seem to recall that it was during one of these conversations that she asked me if I had ever come across anything about Tante Frieda. I said, no, I had not. I asked her who Tante Frieda was. Aunt Marian said that she was not sure, but that Frieda lived with her family for a while when they were kids. She had come from Germany to Cincinnati and worked as a cook for the Schott family. Aunt Marian thought she was a relative, but couldn’t be certain that she was really an aunt. She had no idea what her last name was. Eventually, Frieda returned to Germany.

My mom was still alive when I first heard about Frieda, so I asked her what she remembered. No, mom did not know how Frieda was related. She remembered that eventually she returned to Germany, either to the town of Buchholz or to marry a man named Buchholz.

It seemed likely that Frieda arrived at Ellis Island. If she were truly an aunt, she might have one of these surnames: Lindner, Kessler, or maybe Maier. During my initial search on the Ellis Island website, I tried those surnames and a few more, but did not get any likely hits. Because I did not have enough information, I never even created an entry for Frieda in my family tree. Frieda remained a mystery.

When my mom passed away three years ago, some of my Grandfather Lindner’s old photos came to me. It took until 2014 (and a new scanner) for me to begin to look at these photos with any degree of seriousness. I came across a page torn from a family album. It had three postcards on it. Printed in white across the black paper it said “Tante Frieda’s Home Town. 1937.” The photos on the cards were of Buchholz in Erzgebirge. This brought back a childhood memory of being with my Grandpa Otto and laughing over the name “Erzgebirge.” It was fun to pronounce and we laughed and laughed. This may have been why Erzgebirge was on the tip of our tongues – it was where Tante Frieda had lived. In this same collection of photos, I encountered a smiling Frieda in several of them. She was a stout woman with a cane.

Armed with the knowledge that Frieda was from Buchholz in Saxony, I decided to take another look for her. Once again, I tried the Ellis Island website, but I still had no last name and I couldn’t search without at least two letters of the surname. I remembered that there might be a different way to search Ellis Island records. A Google search brought me to what I needed. Steve Morse has a one-step search form: http://stevemorse.org/ellis2/ellisgold.html. I was able to search using Frieda and the town of Buchholz. There were only five names returned and I immediately recognized our Tante Frieda as Frieda Pueschel. Pueschel was the surname of my two times great grandmother, Christiane Charlotte Pueschel, the wife of Emil Heinrich Max Lindner.

The Steve Morse search results had a link that took me directly to the ship’s manifest. After logging in to the Ellis Island site I learned that Frieda arrived on December 9, 1922, and was joining her cousin, Gustav Lindner in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was born in 1882; Her physical description says she was five feet, four inches tall, had black hair and blue eyes. The other piece of new information was that Frieda’s marital status was “divorced.” Yesterday, I told Aunt Marian about my find. She was not surprised that Frieda’s name was Pueschel, but she never knew that Tante Frieda was divorced. Aunt Marian commented, “That must have been quite a scandal in those days.” We speculated that Frieda may have left Buchholz because of the divorce. And, did she return to marry her sweetheart as the family story goes? Right now, I don’t know the answer.

Frieda did work for a Schott family. Aunt Marian said she was a cook, but three Cincinnati city directories list her as a maid. By cross-referencing the address, I learned that she lived and worked in the household of Katherine Schott, widow of Colon Schott. They were from Germany and Colon Schott had been an attorney. He apparently had done well for himself. The 1930 census shows that his home was valued at $37,000 – quite pricey for the time. The 1920 census shows a German maid living with the Schott family. They have just one domestic living in their household, so Frieda probably replaced this woman. She probably cooked and cleaned, hence the description of her job as “cook.” Aunt Marian said that the Schott’s were very good to Frieda. She received gifts of fur collars from them and other nice things. In 1930, after Frieda returned home to Germany, the Schott family was without live-in help. Aunt Marian always wondered if this was the Schott family that eventually owned the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. From what I can tell, it was not.

I also don’t know exactly who Frieda’s parents were. That will be the next phase of my quest. She is probably the niece of Christiane Charlotte Pueschel, which would make her Gustav Lindner’s cousin, since Charlotte was his mother.

Tags: Buchholz, Cincinnati, Lindner, Pueschel, Saxony Permalink

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Charles Wippel – Missing – 52 Ancestors #1

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on January 28, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Biermann

January 28, 2014

Entry #1

My “most wanted” ancestor is my 3x great-grandfather Charles (Carl) Whipple (Wippel). For years, I have been searching for his whereabouts after 1857. He is one of those ancestors that seem to have vanished without a trace.

Carolus Wippel was born in Roxheim, Germany on April 27, 1830, the son of Christoff Wipple and Catharina Lauer. On July 6, 1840, the Christoff Wippel family arrived in Baltimore aboard the Bark Strabo. At some point during this decade, they made their way to Beaver County, Pennsylvania. There is some evidence that they may have spent time in Meigs County, Ohio, first.

1840 Passenger List for the Bark “Strabo”

On May 7, 1848, in Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio, Charles married his first cousin Catharina Wippel. Catharina was born in Roxheim in January 1828 to Johann Wippel and Catharina Dietrich. This branch of the Wippel family came to Pomeroy in 1847. My 2x great-grandmother, Kate Wippel, was born in November 1848, six months after Charles and Catharine married. They had a second daughter, Barbara (Barbary) in 1851. I have never been able to identify Charles, Catharine or Kate in the 1850 census. In fact, I have never found Charles Wippel in any census – ever.

It does not seem like this was a happy marriage. I located a divorce decree for the couple from May 1857. Catherine charged Charles with being “willfully absent from the said petitioner more than three years.” It further decreed that Catharine Whipple be “restored to her maiden name of Catharine Whipple.” (I thought that was rather amusing). This wonderful document named the children Catherine and Barbary and admonished that Charles was not to “interfere” with them. I suppose that was the 1857 version of terminating parental rights.

Meigs County, Ohio, Court Record for May 1857

I am sure that this divorce was a really big deal for a Roman Catholic family in 1857. The newly divorced Catharine married Peter Effler (Oeffler) in a civil service on June 1, 1857. Kate and Barbara grew up with Peter Effler as their step-father.

My cousin Judy B helped me locate the will of Christoff Wippel, probated in 1877, in which he bequethed $100 to his two grandchildren, daughters of his son, Charles. There is no other mention of Charles, and so I presume him dead. I have some evidence, which I won’t detail, that Charles may have died between 1865 and 1868. I find nothing that indicates that Charles served in the Civil War like his brother Thomas.

I cannot tell if Charles was still around Meigs County after the divorce. He isn’t in the Meigs County census in 1860, and he did not vote in Meigs County in 1863. There is no death record for him in the Sacred Heart Catholic Church records of Pomeroy, Ohio. Charles does not appear in the Meigs County death records, either.

I have eliminated the possibility that he is the Charles Wippel of Alameda County, California; nor is he the one in Kansas. There are many Whipples born in New England states, but not many German ones. I have not ruled out the possibility that Charles had another family, changed his name, or took some other action that is keeping him hidden. Maybe I am just unlucky and there is no record to be found.

Mostly, I wonder about this marriage. Were these two kissing cousins who had to get married when Catharine learned she was pregnant? Or, was Charles a convenient husband to prevent poor Catharine from being disgraced? Charles had just turned 18 at the time of the marriage. Catharine was two years older, but she had been in the United States less than a year. One other nagging little detail is a handwritten note that was probably penned by my great-grandaunt, Katherine Miller Patterson. She wrote out all of the names and birth dates of her siblings and her parents. For mother, Kate Wippel, she has a birth date of November 25, 1847. Could Kate have been born BEFORE Charles and Catharine married? If that were true, then Catharine Wippel arrived in the United States already with child.

For the time being, I have discarded the 1847 birth date for Kate. She is listed as “Catherine Efler” in the 1860 US census for Meigs County and her age is given as 11, matching the 1848 birth year.

I match several Wippel cousins who have been DNA tested. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be a relationship that will be proved or disproved by DNA. Since Charles and Catharine shared common ancestors, I would match on both sides of the family.

I wonder if Charles went west. Maybe he hopped a steamer and followed the Ohio River. Perhaps, he ended up somewhere in an unmarked grave. Maybe he found another bride and went on to have a second family, or maybe he already had a second family by the time he divorced. I have so many questions about Charles that I would love to have answered, including the big one – is he really my 3x great-grandfather? Maybe some day there will be another clue.

Tags: DNA, Pomeroy Ohio, Wippel Permalink

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on January 22, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

I didn’t come across the post at the beginning of January, but Amy Johnson Crow, a Genealogical Content Manager for Ancestry.com, challenged researchers to blog about 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. I have to admit that I am not sure if I am up to the challenge, especially since I am still working on my website. I liked Amy’s encouraging attitude, though. She said, ” Feel free to start whatever week you want. Skip a week if you need to. (Catch up later… or not. It’s up to you!) Include collateral relatives if you want; I’m not going to check if it’s an actual ancestor or a collateral. It’s up to you.”

Even though I am getting a late start, I have written about an ancestor a week already. I just posted the information in other places. With a little editing, I should be able to make those my first four stories. I think this is a very worthwhile challenge. I am great at collecting data, but it is the stories that are really interesting. What do all of these records tell us when we put them together?

So here goes…I will write about my ancestors and my husbands. With well over 5,000 people in my family tree, I should be able to tell 52 stories!

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