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.

David Brown – Plowing Through Brown Fields – 52 Ancestors 2015 #5

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on February 3, 2015 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Brown

David Brown is one of my brick walls. I have almost nothing on this ancestor of my husband’s maternal grandmother; in fact, I think I only have two references to him. Because there is so little to go on, I periodically plow through the early 19th century Browns of Southeastern Pennsylvania. David Brown is supposed to be the father of John Jacob Jackson Brown and his sister Rachel White Brown Taylor. (Yes, Rachel Brown’s middle name really was White.) Their mother was Catherine – last name unknown.

Marriage of Jacob Brown and Mary Ann Gross

Death Record for Rachel White Brown Taylor

It is a tenuous thread that ties together Jacob, a.k.a. Jackson, Brown (line 12) with his mother Catherine Brown (line 1) in the 1850 U.S. census for Salisbury, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They are in adjacent households. Catherine is identified as having been born in Germany, and this is the only clue to date as to her ethnicity. There is a 16-year-old in the same home – presumably another son named Henry (line 2), but I cannot confirm the relationship, because I cannot identify Henry Brown in any other records. The absence of David Brown suggests that he is deceased, but there is no proof; he could just be absent.

1850 Salisbury, Lancaster County, PA, Census

Assuming that David Brown was at least 18 when Jacob was born, I am looking for an individual born before 1812. He is probably not likely to have been born before 1770. That is a fairly broad window…too broad for my comfort level.

If I jump back to the 1840 census, there are 10 David Browns in Lancaster and Chester counties to be considered. There is no clear winner as my husband’s ancestor. The one closest to Salisbury, Lancaster County is the David Brown of West Caln in Chester County, PA. Unfortunately, the age of the older female is not a good fit for Catherine. In 1830, the David Brown from Sadsbury is likely the same one as the David Brown from West Caln in 1840; but again, there is too little data.

At one point, I decided to take a different tack. I isolated and explored all of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Brown ancestors of my mother-in-law’s DNA matches. There were some promising leads, but for all my plowing, I was unable to harvest a David Brown. The problem is that my mother-in-law has so many Colonial ancestors that she usually has a number of common surnames with her matches.

All of my evidence for David Brown is indirect. I feel like I am plowing crooked furrows. At this point, I am exhausted and I must say goodnight to David Brown, even if I am not finished tilling!

Tags: Brown, Gross, Lancaster County, Taylor Permalink

Leave a comment

John F. Beermann – Closest to My Birthday – 52 Ancestors 2015 – #4

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on January 27, 2015 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Biermann

The theme this week for 52 Ancestors is”Closest to your Birthday.” Perfect! I was born on the birthday of my great-grandfather, John F. Beermann (later changed to Biermann). He was born 6 June 1862 in Cincinnati, Ohio, to recent immigrants, William Joseph Beermann and Mary Elizabeth Maune Beermann. On 6 June 1880, John F. Beermann married my great-grandmother, Anne Schulte. It seems significant that they married the same day that John turned 18. Anne was just about 9 months older than John. I have to wonder if marrying on his birthday was a romantic gesture, or if it speaks to reaching the age of consent. Had John married one day earlier, I believe that he would have needed his father’s permission. Of course, 18 as an age is empowering as it carries most of the legal rights of being an adult.

On 5 June 1880 , the census was enumerated, and we have a snapshot of John’s life the day before his marriage. Despite what may have been a bad home life with a father who drank, Anne Schulte had not moved in with the Beermann family. The Beermanns were recorded as “Baarmann” in the census and the family, living at 18 Flint Street, was as follows:

Wm. Baarman 46
Eliza Baarman 40
John Baarman 18
Lizzie Baarman 12
William Baarman 10
Frank Baarman 7
Minnie Baarman 9 months

Missing is a sister, Mary, who was enumerated in the 1870 census and whose estimated birth year is around 1865. Presumably, she died sometime before she turned five. I have no death or burial record for her.

The 1880 Cincinnati directory lists William as a cigar maker. This is likely to be the way that John and Anne met. Anne’s father, John Schulte, was also in the cigar business. By 1881, John was listed as a chair maker, but he is still listed in at his parents’ address at 18 Flint; and in 1882, still with his parents at 32 Kenner Street. Most likely a newly married couple could not afford a place of their own, so they moved in with John’s parents. In 1884, John has a separate address. He is in the city directory at 15 Jones and he is now a foreman chair maker. At some point, John and his father-in-law, John Schulte, decided to open a saloon together. They are listed under this business in the Cincinnati city directories from 1887 to 1890. Perhaps they were in business together earlier than acknowledged through the directories. The Cincinnati Enquirer for Saturday, 21 May 1881, noted that a man with the name of Beermann was a saloon keeper:

Later, after the death of John Schulte, John F. Beermann returned to his career as a cabinet maker and he once again was promoted to the title of foreman.

John and Anne were blessed with the following children:
Clifford John Biermann
1884 – 1943

Mae Biermann
1886 – 1971

Anna Biermann
1892 – 1969

Hilda Biermann
1895 – 1990

John Joseph Biermann Jr.
1899 – 1995

John F. Biermann Family

The comment, “This family just came over from Russia,” was intended as a joke.

From everything that I have heard John and Anne Beermann were devout Catholics and they brought up their children accordingly. It must have come as quite a shock to them when my grandfather, John Junior, renounced Catholicism at the age of 19. John Junior had been an altar boy and the reasons for his decision to become Protestant are known only to him. He became vehemently anti-Catholic and I was in my teens before I realized that his parents and siblings were all Catholic.

John F. Beermann died on 19 March 1938 at the age of 75. He was listed on his death certificate as a cabinet maker at Pettibone’s; they were a manufacturer of uniforms, regalia, camp furniture, swords, flags, banners, buttons and caps. John is buried at St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.

John F. Beermann

Sharing birthdays and anniversaries is a tradition in our house. When our son was born, his due date was two days after our wedding anniversary. I said, please, please, please, let him be born any day, but on our anniversary. What day did he arrive? He showed up in this world on our fifth wedding anniversary, thus, claiming that day as forever his own!

I think that June is a beautiful time of the year. I always believed that it is the loveliest time for a birthday and it is the choice of many couples for their wedding day. I am delighted to share my special day with Anne and John.

Sources:
Williams’ Cincinnati City Directory – Various years

Tags: Beermann, Biermann, Maune, Schulte Permalink

Leave a comment

Effie Lucretia Daughters – The Grandmother I Knew – 52 Ancestors 2015 #3

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on January 20, 2015 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Lindner

In week three of the 52 Ancestors Challenge, the theme is “Tough Woman.” I found myself asking just what constitutes toughness in a woman. I have chosen my grandfather’s second wife, Effie Lucretia Daughters, as the subject of my blog this week. She was tough and strong in a quiet way. Her biggest strength was her uncompromising good character – a trait that she passed on to her step-daughters.

My grandmother, Alma Maier Lindner, died on 11 August 1926 of septicemia related to an impacted wisdom tooth. She and my grandfather, Otto Lindner, had been married just six years. My grandfather was suddenly left with two small girls, ages two and five. I am not sure exactly how my grandfather met Effie Daughters. I believe they was introduced by a mutual friend. Otto was definitely looking for a wife. On 3 September 1927, they married in Cincinnati. Effie was 47 years old at this time and had never been married before. She was nearly 10 years older than my grandfather. Effie was not a handsome woman and this may have had a lot to do with why she was unwed until she was in her mid-forties.

Effie Daughters at Age 20

Effie was born 1 September 1880 in Kentucky to Ira Daughters and Alice Utz Daughters. She had one brother, Ira Ward Daughters. I remember hearing that Effie’s father was an alcoholic and that he was abusive. Generally, I had the impression that Effie did not have a very happy home life. Ira was an insurance solicitor in 1900, but both Effie and her brother worked in factories at ages 19 and 17 respectively. I could not verify it, but I believe they may have gone to work earlier than that. Effie is listed in the 1900 census as a finisher in a toy factory; in 1910 she was a employed as an embroiderer. My mother had always told me that her mother (meaning Effie) was a seamstress. We have a quilt in the family that was made by her and I have a doll quilt that she made for me when I was small.

Effie never had children of her own, but she raised my mother and my aunt as though they were her own. This is what my mother told me as a child when she first informed me that Grandma Lindner was not my real grandmother. She said that Effie was her mother, because she was the only mother she really ever knew. I was told through the years, though, that grandpa married Effie because he needed a mother for his children. It isn’t exactly a romantic story, but this seems to have been very common in times past. My aunt and sister were living with relatives until their father married Effie.

Effie was a practical, down-to-earth, no-nonsense woman. She had a pithy saying about for nearly everything. I laugh at myself because these folksy adages still come out of my mouth from time-to-time. I realize that they came to me from my mother who, in turn, had learned them from Effie. They were sayings like “pretty is as pretty does,” “a stitch in time saves nine,” and, one of my favorites, “visitors and fish stink after a few days.” Effie wasn’t a complainer, but she did get frustrated with modern technology that didn’t last. When the electric vacuum broke, she blurted out with exasperation, “Well, that wasn’t much good, it only lasted nineteen years!”

Effie was a tireless worker. She must have worked supporting her family from her teens until she married my grandfather. According to the 1940 census, she completed the 8th grade and I wonder if she left school to go to work. Effie had little thought for herself and was always doing for others. I recall that, through her church, she and my grandfather would travel to Harlan County Kentucky on a mission to help provide assistance to the poor. I know that she would talk about the poverty that they saw there, and these were my first impressions of an impoverished Appalachia where I would live later in my life.

Effie, herself, was a very frugal woman. Of course, she was raising a family in the Great Depression, so I suppose this is not that unusual. Everything that could be saved and reused was; clothing was handed down to the next child, or a cousin, or a neighbor; when clothing was not longer serviceable, it was made into something else or turned into rags. Even spare pieces of string were saved. If she wore make-up it was used sparingly and her dress was never flashy.

Effie Daughters Lindner

I don’t know what kind of a relationship Effie had with my grandfather, or even if they loved one another. They seemed happy enough, although, I am sure that Effie put up with a lot with my grandfather’s teasing and joking. She seemed to take it in stride. For a while she dealt with grandpa’s not so very nice Uncle Gus living in their household.

To me Effie Daughters represents an era of women who did not have many choices in their lives. They lived to make good homes for their families and to train their children with strong values so they would grow up to be good people. It cannot have been easy to have been single for 47 years before taking on another woman’s children to raise. Effie died in Cincinnati, Ohio, on 3 May 1971 at the age of 90.

Tags: Cincinnati, Daughters, Lindner Permalink

Leave a comment

Paul Luther – A Doctor and an Alchemist – 52 Ancestors 2015 #2

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on January 15, 2015 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

I struggled with the 52 Ancestors theme of “King” this week. At first I thought that it was going to be impossible, although I hated to think that I would have to abandon the idea of using the theme so early in this year’s challenge. After some effort, I actually came up with two ancestors (a father and son) who had dealings with royalty. My 11x great-grandfather, Martin Luther, was denounced for his religious views that challenged papal authority by England’s King Henry VIII. In an ironic twist, King Henry had not yet decided to cast off his first wife, Catharine of Aragon, in favor of Anne Boleyn. Under the influence of Cardinal Wolsey, Henry wrote a treatise attacking Luther’s criticisms of the Pope. King Henry VIII, thus, was given the title, “Defender of the Faith” by the Pope.

Nevertheless, I wrote about Martin Luther in my week 13 post in 2014, and I’m not ready to start recycling ancestors yet. Therefore, I decided to explore Paul Luther, the third and youngest son of Martin Luther and Kartharina von Bora, and also my 10x great-grandfather. I knew from my Grandfather Lindner that Paul Luther was a court physician, but I never asked about the details. This week I asked myself if Paul had the patronage of a king.

Paul Luther was born on January 28, 1533, in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. He was only 13 when his famous father died. The years that followed will filled with tumult for the Luther family. They fled Wittenberg several times – once to Magdeburg during the Schmalkaldic War, later to Brunswick. and in 1552 to Torgau to avoid the bubonic plague. It was on the latter journey that Paul’s mother was in an cart accident and she later died of her injuries. Paul married Anna Von Warbeck in 1553 in Torgau at the age of 20. In July 1557, Paul Luther completed his studies and was awarded a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Wittenberg. 3

Paul Luther

Paul Luther is often described as the most able of Martin Luther’s children. He held a series of prestigious positions as physician serving John Frederick II, Duke of Saxony; Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg; Augustus, Elector of Saxony; and the successor of Augustus, Christian I, Elector of Saxony. The honor of having served these individuals is recorded on Paul’s tombstone.

Germany during this time was a group of kingdoms or duchies, that were part of the Holy Roman Empire. According to Wikipedia:

Electors were among the princes of the Empire, but they had exclusive privileges in addition to their electoral ones which were not shared with the other princes. The dignity of Elector was extremely prestigious, and was held in addition to such feudal titles as Duke, Margrave, or Count Palatine.

So, while I did not find that Paul Luther was employed by a king, he certainly had contact with some of the highest nobility in the Germany of his time.

It is fascinating to me that Paul Luther was also described as an alchemist. 2 The Renaissance was an age during which there was a strong belief that various materials could be transformed into gold. It may sound ludicrous to us today, because we know that gold is an element, but in Paul’s time there was a widespread conviction that it was possible. This, after all, was a period of great scientific advances. People were continually making claims to have done it, many of them charlatans, who used trickery to advance their own financial gain.

Paul is purported to have taught alchemy to Anna, a daughter of Christian, King of Denmark. At seventeen Anna became the wife of August, Elector of Saxony. She brought a knowledge of medicinal herbs from her home and a deep thirst for medical knowledge. 1 Paul worked in a laboratory of sorts at the castle, although, it is possible that he was less an alchemist and more of a chemist. He is supposed to have developed several drugs, including Unguentum ex nitro, Magistrum perlarum, Magistrum collorum, and Aurum potabile, that were produced by the pharmacies of Dresden. 3

Paul Luther retired to Leipzig in 1590, where he died on 8 March 1593. His funeral sermon was given my Martin Dresser and I am currently seeking a translation from Latin to English.

Sources:

Apotheker, J and Sarkadi, L.S.; European Women in Chemistry; Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2011
Forrester, George P.; “The History of a Royal Pharmacy;” American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record. Publisher: New York, American Druggist Pub. Co.
Paul Luther; Widipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Luther

Permalink

2 Comments

52 Ancestors 2015

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on January 6, 2015 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

I had barely completed the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, heaving an enormous sigh of relief, when I learned that it was happening again in 2015. No, I thought, I really don’t have another year in me. But, everyone was so encouraging that I thought, why not? What do I have to lose? So, this year I may not make an ancestor every week, but I will give an effort in the spirit of the challenge. Write, so that others can learn what research techniques have worked for me and others where I’ve failed; write, so that my child, my nieces, and my cousins can see just a snippet of their own past; write, so that I will stay motivated to continue…my search for the past.

So, I didn’t finish all 52 posts for 2015, but I did all 52 in 2014. I did manage 45 posts before I became bogged down by the themes that weren’t especially interesting to me. I have decided to move on. My intention is to continue this blog as “52 Ancestors Redux”. It is time to revisit the ancestors for whom I have new information. Maybe along the way, I’ll complete those last seven posts.

Permalink

8 Comments

Betty Jane Gaa – A Fresh Start for Betty – 52 Ancestors 2015 #1

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on January 5, 2015 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Biermann

So, with one year of posts under my belt, I have decided to include some guest bloggers this year. There are people in my family who can tell some of these stories better than I can. There were times last year when I felt inadequate as the storyteller for some of my ancestors.

My first guest blogger is a cousin that I have only known briefly. His name is Gary Barlow and we were brought together by Ancestry DNA. I have referred to some of the intriguing ways that DNA has impacted my family research this past year, and this one ranks high on my list of DNA successes. Gary’s family story is rather remarkable, and I just play a junior detective role in the investigation. When I heard that the first theme for week #1 of 52 Ancestors 2015 was going to be “Fresh Start,” this is the tale that was foremost in my mind. (Wippel/Whipple cousins of Beaver, PA, and Pomeroy, OH, please note, this entry pertains to your family.)

Here are the words of Gary Barlow, my first guest blogger, as he writes about his mother – Nordeen Renae “Dee” Sanders:

My mother and father were happily married for 66 years. They raised five children and built a business together, for the most part in the same house my dad built in the late 1940s. And yet we never knew who my mom was before she met my dad.

Nordeen Renae “Dee” Sanders

We knew she grew up in Columbus, Ohio. We knew she met my dad in Denver when he was sent there to train for the Army Air Corps in World War II. We knew my oldest brother was named after her brother. And that’s about it.

She would never talk about her family. My dad said her parents and brother died in an accident in Ohio. Once, when I was a teenager, I researched the history of my dad’s family. Before long, I had a pretty good picture of the ancestors of my father. One night, while I was working on that, my mom walked into the room, and I asked her, “What about your family?” She replied, hurriedly, “Oh, they were just a mix of this and that,” then said she had to go do something and disappeared. It was obvious the subject was off-limits, and I never asked again.

Several years ago, after she had died at age 88, I asked my dad about her family. He said he asked her about that once when they were dating in Denver, and she told him her family was dead. He said, “The question just seemed to upset her a lot, so I never asked her again. I knew I loved her and wanted to marry her, and that was good enough for me.”

Bill and Dee in Denver

After he died a couple years ago, I became curious again and began trying to find out who her family was. The problem I ran into was that there was no trace of her before she married my dad. I did find an old paper in her things that showed she had left Ohio and moved to Denver in the first half of 1941. And I found another note she had written stating that she was born in Hamilton, Ohio.

I searched for Nordeen Sanders in the 1930 and 1940 census records and found nothing. I even looked at all the Sanders families in Ohio and all the Nordeens in the U.S. in those records. Again, I found nothing. I began to wonder if she may have changed her name before she met my dad.

Last year, some friends bought me a DNA test as a gift. I had never considered the possibilities that could open up, but once I took it and got the results I saw the benefits immediately. Here were lists of supposed cousins, some of them from Ohio and obviously not related to my dad. Then, two of those cousins, Cheryl Hartley, and a woman named Linda, got in touch with me, wondering how we were related.

We quickly figured out that these two cousins weren’t related to each other. Linda was definitely related through my mom because we shared a large segment of X DNA. We figured Cheryl must be related through a different parent of my mom. We searched their family trees for a few months, and I searched for DNA matches under the surnames in them.

Finally, one day, Linda had a hunch about one of her great aunts who had lived in Ohio and suggested I take a look at her branch of the family. When I did, one family stood out. I wondered, “Where have I seen this family before?” So I searched for the father, Victor Gaa, on Ancestry.com, and in the list of public member family trees he was in, Cheryl’s tree was first on the list.

I looked at the family again. They had a son and two daughters, one born in 1921, the same as my mom. Even more interesting, that daughter, Betty Jane, was born in Hamilton, Ohio, and grew up in Columbus. And Betty Jane seemed to have disappeared in early 1941. There was no record of her after that. Even her brother’s and sister’s obituaries didn’t mention her. It was as if she had left her family and they never heard from her again.

I knew then I’d found my mom. Since then, I’ve continued doing research, trying to figure out her life before she went to Denver and met my dad. There is still a ways to go, but I’m beginning to understand her story. She hadn’t had the best family life growing up. There was a lot of instability. Something does seem to have happened in late 1940, though I’m not sure what it was yet. For whatever reason, shortly after that, she decided to go west and make a new life for herself, under a new name. It wasn’t hard to do that then. To get a Social Security card, all she had to do was ask in 1941. Proof of identity wasn’t required.

She got a job in Denver as a clerk. From old photos I found in her things, she apparently lived with and socialized with some other young women her age. A year or so after she got there, my dad was sent to Denver. The rest is known history.

Before he was sent off to Europe and D-Day, my dad married her and put her on a bus to go live with his parents until he came back. When he did come back, they built the stable family life she valued so much. They stayed true to each other for more than six decades, lived in the same house most of that time, went to church on Sundays, and raised their kids.

I don’t know why yet she took her secret to her grave. She had her reasons for doing what she did, I’m sure. Not long before she died, she looked at me from her hospital bed and said, out of the blue, “You know your father saved my life.” I’m only just beginning to understand what she meant. But I do know that for her, for 66 years, that held true. Whatever my mom ran away from, she got her fresh start, and it lasted a lifetime for both my mom and dad and all of us, too.

Bill and Dee in Rockers

*****

Gary Barlow is a journalist, paralegal, and amateur genealogist who lives in Chicago. Other passions include cooking, history, music of all kinds, the White Sox, Arsenal F.C., and British TV murder mysteries

Tags: Barlow, Columbus, Gaa, Whipple, Wippel Permalink

6 Comments

Johann Christian Beermann – How the Word “Genannt” Shakes up Everything – 52 Ancestors #52

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on December 31, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Biermann

Entry #52

With this entry, I am successfully completing the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks blogging challenge!

Right before Christmas I received new information about my maiden name – Biermann, or Beermann as it was spelled prior to 1910. It seems a fitting way to wrap up the year with an extraordinary finding about my name. For years, I had been diligently looking for clues that would help me find the ancestral home of my paternal surname.

I don’t know how my Biermann cousins feel about our name, but I have never been that happy with it. As a sensitive teenager, I was teased about my surname and, in my twenties, I didn’t like the masculinity of the name. I often joked about changing my name to Bier-person to create gender neutrality. As I mentioned, “Biermann” was not the original spelling. It was originally “Beermann,” but my dad explained that his Uncle Cliff, his father’s brother, had changed the spelling when he owned a drugstore in Chicago.

C. J. Biermann Drugstore in Chicago

The story goes that Clifford Beermann lived in a Jewish neighborhood in Hyde Park and he wanted his surname to appear to be Jewish. He felt that would be better for business. Subsequently, he persuaded the entire family to adopt the uniform spelling of “Biermann.” I am a bit surprised that he kept the double “n.” The extra “n” tacked on to a name ending with “man” is a tell-tale giveaway that the name is German. At any rate, the story has a ring of truth; I have heard of other families who standardized the spelling of their surnames around this time. My dad says that his grandfather, John F. Beermann, objected to the change. He is reported to have said, “I was born a Beermann and I’ll die a Beermann.” Indeed, he is buried under the name of “Beermann.”

In entry #51, I mentioned Monika Thölking, who helped me with my Schulte’s. She explained that she lives in Osnabrück, so I mentioned that maybe she could give me advice about finding my Franz Maune family from Belm. Monika said that she had the records at home and she found Franz Maune very quickly. Mary Elizabeth Maune, a daughter of Franz, married William Joseph Beermann in 1860. I had always assumed that William and Elisabeth married in Cincinnati, but realized that, other than the 1900 census, I didn’t have an actual citation for their marriage. Still, I have had a growing impression that they may have known one another before emigrating. I asked Monika to take a quick look for Wilhelm Joseph Beermann in Belm.

Monika reported back that, yes, she had found my great, great-grandfather. Wilhelmus Josephus Beermann was born in Belm Vehrte, Lower Saxony, in the Kingdom of Hannover. His father was Johann Christian Konersmann gen Beermann and his mother was Maria Elisabeth Hemesath. What, what, what? What does “gen” mean? I discovered that “gen” is an abbreviation for “genannt.”

I soon learned that Beermann was not our original family surname. I had heard of this, particularly relating to this area of Northern Germany; nevertheless, I was still unprepared to find it in my own research.

Here is was Monika thinks happened. She wrote:

Maria Elisabeth Hemesath born in Harderberg, first Husband was Joducus Heinrich Casting. There are two possibilities, first the farm BEERMANN was empty and they were able to take over which means they also had to take over the name of the Farm which was BEERMANN. Second, Maria Elisabeth was married to the owner of a BEERMANN Farm and any husband following had to take this name, it was normal during this time.

I now deduce that historically my surname probably was KONERSMANN prior to 1 November 1829, when my 3x great-grandfather married Elisabeth Hemesath, my 3x great-grandmother. The German dictionary says that “genannt” is the past participle form of the verb “nennen,” which means, “to name.” It is indicates that my Konersmann ancestor took the name of the farm that was called BEERMANN. This was also true of Elisabeth’s prior husband, Joducus Heinrich Casting genannt Beermann. What we do not know is whether or not there was a previous husband named Beermann, or if Joducus Heinrich Casting had purchased the Beermann Farm. I have found some genealogical references to the Beermann Hof (farm) in Vehrte, but I have yet to sort through them to see if I can ascertain what was happening with the ownership.

Elisabeth Hemesath had one child, Kaspar Heinrich Beermann, with her first husband. As the older brother, he would have been the male heir to the Beermann farm. The records indicate that this older son married and stayed in the area, and there were at least several more generations of Beermann descendants. First Friedrich Adolph Beermann, then William Joseph Beermann, being without land, left Germany for Cincinnati, Ohio, in America. William took up the trade of blacksmith.

Now, I am left to begin a line of research on my new KONERSMANN surname. Konersmann is a fairly uncommon name, but I have found that it has a limited distribution that clusters around the Osnabrück area. See map below:

Relative distribution of Konersmann surname

Johann Christian Konersmann was born in Natrup Hagen, Osnabruck, Lower Saxony, Germany on 29 April 1786: he died 24 November 1837 in Vehrte.

Tags: Beermann, Belm, Biermann, Hemesath, Konersmann, Osnabrück, Vehrte Permalink

1 Comment

Johann Heinrich “John” Schulte – Papa’s Delicate Condition – 52 Ancestors #51

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on December 30, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Biermann

Entry #51

Here I am on the second to last night of 2014 posting the second to last entry for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge. I have chosen my great, great-grandfather, Johann Heinrich “John” Schulte for the topic of this post since I have new information about him.

Johann Heinrich “John” Schulte

My great, great grandfather, Johann Heinrich “John” Schulte, was born 2 October 1833 in Lorup by Sögel in the Kingdom of Hannover, Lower Saxony, Germany. I am not sure when John arrived in Cincinnati, but he was present by 1859 when he married Christena Ostendorf on 15 November of that year. John and Christena had three children:

Anne Schulte, 1861 – 1931
Henry J Schulte, 1867 – 1932
Christina Wilhelmina (Minnie) Schulte, 1872 – 1941

Misfortune struck the Schultes and Christena died suddenly on 27 February 1878, probably of a stroke. Christena was just 36 years old at the time of her death.

Mortuary Notice Date: Thursday, February 28, 1878 Paper: Cincinnati Daily Gazette (Cincinnati, OH) Page: 4

Some years ago, I had the good fortune to become acquainted with a Schulte cousin through a post to an Ancestry message board. Kay Engel had a lot more information about the Schulte family, because she is related by the first-cousin marriage of her great-grandparents. (I believe I have this correct.) Her great-grandmother was Wilhelmina “Minnie” Schulte, the youngest daughter of John Schulte, and the sister of my great-grandmother, Anne Schulte Beermann. Minnie married her first cousin Joannes Franciscus Wilhelm “William” Schulte. William’s father was Rudolph Reuben Schulte, who was the son of Reuben Schulte, and the brother of John.

Kay was able to enlighten me regarding a few things about John Schulte that had been told to her through family lore. I knew that John was a cigar maker. My grandfather Biermann had passed this along to me. I suppose as a cigar smoker that must have been meaningful to my grandfather. What he did not share was that later in life John Schulte owned a saloon. It was co-owned by his son-in-law, John F. Beermann. Kay said that John Schulte was a drunk. He would over-imbibe, pass out somewhere in the neighborhood, then, have to be carried home in a drunken stupor and cared for by his daughters. Perhaps referring to it as “Papa’s delicate condition” is an understatement. By 6 June 1880, Anne Schulte had married John F. Beermann and the chore of taking care of father seems to have fallen exclusively to Minnie. Kay also told me that when it came time for Anne to marry, they made her trousseau from her mother’s things.

John died on 1 May 1890 of apoplexy. His obituary from the Cincinnati Volksblatt follows:

Just before Christmas, I posted in the Lower Saxony Facebook group asking for help locating the Catholic Church records for Lorup. Monika Thölking responded that she could help me lookup the information, which was much more than I had expected. I was especially grateful since these records were not available through the LDS collection of films. Monika found that Johann Heinrich Schulte’s parents were Wilhelmus Schulte(gerdts), born 1799 and Maria Krull (born 1797). This is not exactly what I was expecting, since Kay believes that Rudolph Reuben Schulte’s father was Ruben Schulte; however, the date of birth fits Ruben (senior) from the Cincinnati 1860 Federal census, and Mary, his wife, was a few years older. Mary could be Maria Krull. Here we have the dilemma that we just don’t know for certain if Wilhelm could have been Wilhelm Ruben Schulte. It is not unusual to find Germans under different given names in different records. Additionally, Wilhelm’s parents were given as Johannes Schulte(gerdts) and Hempe Maria Dierksen. I will need to ask Monika about the given name “Hempe” as I have not heard it before.

In the meantime, my cousin Kay has DNA tested her autosomal DNA through Ancestry.com and we are expecting her results any day now.

Tags: Beermann, Cincinnati, Dierksen, Johann Heinrich Schulte, Krull, Lorup, Schultegerdts Permalink

Leave a comment

Katherine Frieda Schatz Biermann – My Grandmother Ate Watermelon Five Times a Week- 52 Ancestors #50

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on December 29, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Biermann

Entry #50

This should be an easy entry to write, but when it comes down to it, how well did I really know my Grandmother Biermann? I guess I will see, as I jot down what I remember of her.

Katherine Schatz as a Baby

My paternal grandmother was Katherine Frieda Schatz. Katherine was born on 18 July 1898 in Cincinnati, Ohio Her parents were Henry Schatz and Augusta “Gustie” Miller (Mueller). Henry was born in Cincinnati and Gustie was born in Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio. Gustie and Henry had just two other children, a baby boy who died at birth in 1891, and a daughter, Frieda, who was five years older than Katherine. I believe she was named for her aunt, Katherine Miller Patterson, she was never called “Kate like her grandmother, Kate Wippel Miller. My sister and I called her “Nanny” to distinguish her from Effie Lindner, who was “Grandma.”

One of the most impressive physical features about my grandmother was her long, nearly black hair. Even when she was in her sixties, it had barely grayed. It was thick and in later years, it was typically worn in two braids that were wound around on top of her head. My sister inherited the thick hair of our grandmother, although it was not dark, and I was always a bit envious since my own hair is very fine. Katherine’s hair was so long and thick that she did not wash it very often, because reputedly it took all day to dry.

Katherine Schatz Biermann’s long hair

Katherine was a plump girl most of her life and she grew into a plump woman. This seemed to me to be a very grandmotherly way to look.

As a small child, I adored my grandmother. When we were little, she was inclined to entertain us when we visited. I was a very picky eater, but my parents learned a trick that worked for a while. When I turned up my nose at an item on my plate, my dad had a way of persuading me to try the offending item. I recall refusing to eat watermelon. My father said, “Nanny loves watermelon. She eats it five times a week and twice on Sundays.” I tired watermelon and I loved it, too! The same was apparently true for onions; however, I drew the line at tomatoes. I didn’t care how many times a week Nanny ate tomatoes, I abhorred them like my grandfather did. The bad influence was that Nanny taught me to eat the crisp fat from grilled or fried meats, and I liked that, too. What were you thinking, Nanny? It took me years to unlearn that habit, but unlearn it I did; I no longer find crisp fat appealing.

Katherine Schatz Biermann was a very sociable woman. She belonged to the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls and was a member of Daughters of the Nile. She loved to play cards. From listening to her talk, it seems like she knew everybody’s business, but I was a child, so adult talk seemed that way regardless. I wish I had asked her more about her family, especially her grandmother, Kate Wippel. I remember people saying that my grandmother was related to everyone in Price Hill (one of the hills of Cincinnati).

Katherine Schatz on Her Graduation Day

Katherine married John Joseph Biermann on 1 June 1922. She and John produced two boys, my father and my uncle. She passed away on 16 June 1968 when I was 15 from ovarian cancer. She is entombed with her husband in the Mausoleum at Spring Grove Cemetery.

Tags: Biermann, Cincinnati, Schatz Permalink

Leave a comment

Alma Maier Lindner – The Grandmother I Never Knew – 52 Ancestors #49

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

Entry #49

I am winding down the year now with my blog posts for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks blog challenge. I cannot finish the year without talking about my grandmother, Alma Maier Lindner.

Alma Maier

Alma Maier was the grandmother that I never knew – my mother’s mother. My mother barely knew her either, since she died when my mother was just two years old. The sad thing is that she died from sepsis as a complication of an impacted wisdom tooth. It is probable that antibiotics would have saved her life.

I learned not too long ago that her husband, Otto Lindner, was not with her when she died. He was visiting friends in Kentucky. I’m sure there must be a logical explanation for this, but it just sounds terribly sad. I never heard Grandpa talk about this. Grandpa, then, marred Effie Lucretia Daughters who was nine years older than him. Until I was about five, I had no idea that Effie was not my real grandmother. Certainly, she treated my sister and I with all of the love and affection that one would expect from a grandmother who was blood kin.

Alma Maier was the only daughter of Johann Georg Gottlob Maier and Juliana Magdalena Stephan. Born on 19 May 1893 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Alma, had two full brothers, Emil and Will (Week 5, Why Is My Uncle Wearing a Dress), and two half-brothers, Charlie and Phil Solger.

My impression of Alma is that she was a person of great sympathy. It seems that people shared things with her. My family has two very old Bibles that came to Alma from a minister who asked him to keep them for him. He never returned. This minister instructed her that the Bibles “were never to be sold.” Here we are nearly a century later, holding these Bibles. Alma is long gone and certainly the minister died years ago. What are we to do with the Bibles?

Alma was musical and she may have taken music lessons from Carl Valentin Wunderle, the German-born musician and composer. I have a postcard from Wunderle to Alma. It sounds as though he knows her and that it is not just a response to fan mail.

Note to Alma Maier from Carl Wunderle

The text reads:

Wertes Fräulein Alma: Haben Sie meine Stimme zu: “Erinnerung an Hohenaschau“? ich kann sie nirgends finden. Lassen Sie sich doch mal sehen bei uns. Hoffend daß Sie und Familie sich voll befinden mit besten Grüße. C. Wunderle

I think Wunderle is asking my grandmother if she has been able to find a copy of his recording “Remembering Hohenaschau,” because he has not.

Alma also received postcards from a man in the Azores, where her father occasionally traveled to work on machinery. I am not sure who this man was.

I asked my grandpa, Otto, how he met Alma. He told me that he had to speak to her father first before he could court her. My aunt told me a few weeks ago that her dad may have been able to see her mother from the back yard of his home – they were neighbors. She was not sure if they talked over the fence before the permission was given. She said that he may have been too shy to ask Alma out and so he went to Gottlob to pave the way. I supposed the courtship went well, because Alma and Otto were married on 22 May 1920. She and Otto were together only six years when she died on 11 August 1926.

Wedding of Alma Maier and Otto Lindner – 22 May 1920

I have quite a few photos of my grandmother. Some are in costume, which tells me she was a fun person.

Alma Maier – Is this a wig?

Alma reminds me a bit of my Aunt Sofie Maier, Alma’s first cousin. Of course, I only knew Aunt Sofie as an elderly matron. I always feel like I am looking at a woman with a warm personality whenever I look at my real grandmother – no disrespect to Effie, she was just a different kind of woman. It is a sad loss that I was never able to know her.

Tags: Cincinnati, Lindner, Maier Permalink

← Older posts

Newer posts →

Post navigation