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.

Margaret “Maggie” Miranda Walton – Our Link to Founding Colonial Families – 52 Ancestors #48

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on December 5, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Sigmund

Entry #48

My mother-in-law is the one with the deep Colonial American ancestry. It took me years of research (due to several errors in a family tree compiled by one of her aunts) to tap into these lines. My mother-in-law’s great-grandmother was NOT Margaret Amelia Walton, but Margaret “Maggie” Miranda Walton. Maggie Walton’s husband, Theodore Herman Brown, was NOT born in Delaware Water Gap, PA, but in Gap, Lancaster County, PA. Once I was able to clarify those two items, I was able to identify Maggie Walton as one of the Byberry Waltons. (Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

Pedigree of Margaret Miranda Walton

There is a massive volume of family history by Norman Walton Swayne on this prolific family and a second, more recent, volume II. During my research for this blog, I came across a fun, two decade-old news article about the family as seen by their descendants. I got a kick out of the human side of the story, so I will reproduce the article here.

Walton Clan Looks Back On Byberry – The Four Brothers Are Credited With Founding Byberry In 1683.

By Lea Sitton, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Posted: August 13, 1993

The Byberry Waltons drank too much and played around. They quarreled with one another. Some killed themselves – in 1759 Joshua Walton strung himself from a tree in his front yard – but many more lived past 90 and several saw 100.

Sometimes they stayed single. Usually they got married. They started
families, farms and mills. Samuel (d. 1857) built the first bridge across the Allegheny. Boaz (d. 1853) and Jeremiah (d. 1854) made cabinets. Hannah (d. 1817) wrote poems. (She also gave birth to two daughters and never had a husband.) William (d. 1807) loved to hunt raccoons and pigeons, and may have shot the last bear killed in Byberry Township.

The Byberry Waltons were not signers of the Declaration.

They did not invent anything like the light bulb.

They were regular people.

But they worked hard, and the first ones here – four brothers – are credited with breaking ground in 1683 for a settlement along Poquessing Creek that is now the Byberry section of Northeast Philadelphia. A lot of people would say, “So what?” The brothers are history, dead and dusty, paved over and built on.

But the Waltons of today would say the past holds good stories and is reason enough for a get-together. Tomorrow and Sunday, a couple hundred descendants of Nathaniel, Thomas, Daniel and William are expected to gather at the Best Western on Roosevelt Boulevard for their 11th annual reunion. Most of them will come from the Philadelphia area, but some will travel farther, including one expected from Hawaii.
Beatrice Walton, who married into the family, is the museum curator for the Byberry Friends Meeting, which the Waltons helped found.
She is passionate about the past.

“I can’t tell you why. I don’t know why. . . . It’s just something I took to,” said Bea Walton, 75. She and students who doze through history agree on one thing: It’s not the bare facts that get their attention.

“I hate that, just seeing a name and a date,” she said. “What were they? What did they do?”

Since 1960, Bea Walton has worked on the second floor of the schoolhouse at the Byberry Friends Meeting, which is on Byberry Road at Thornton Road, its original location.

There, the library collection, started by the Friends in 1794, is surrounded by a natural history collection, initiated around 1830. Animals stuffed and mounted for posterity, dead insects in bottles, a Revolutionary War scabbard, Civil War saddlebags, a 15-pound granite ball that William P. Bonner carried back from Massachusetts in a suitcase in 1897. That and more can be found in the museum.

Maybe the reason for her passion is also there, where it is clear that dead does not mean dull. Really, what kind of a guy would accept a granite ball from an old fisher in Cape Cod, then carry it home in a suitcase? And who would pickle a large piece of asparagus and donate it for display? Somebody who attended the Byberry Meeting in the 1940s or ’50s, that’s who.

For Bea Walton, none of them is dead and dusty.

According to the family history, the four Walton brothers walked about 50 miles north along the Delaware River after arriving from England. For months, they lived in the dirt, in a 3-foot cave covered with bark, because they lacked building supplies. Besides, they had to concentrate on growing food.

Their settlement grew into Byberry Township, which became part of Philadelphia in 1853. It was named for Bibury parish near Gloucestershire, England, the brothers’ home.

Most of Byberry’s early settlers were Quakers and things were peaceful until around 1690 when preacher George Keith showed up and started arguments over religion. Soon, the Byberry Meeting split and Nathaniel stood with the Keithians – opposite his brothers. The split was bitter. Once, Nathaniel went back to the other meeting when one of his brothers was preaching. Nathaniel rose angrily and shouted, “Brother, thou lyest.”The Keithians soon moved onto other denominations. Because Nathaniel did not stay with the Quakers, who kept detailed records, his line is more faint than his brothers’.

Richard W. Walton, 77, who descends from both Daniel and Thomas, said 15,000 to 16,000 descendants have been documented, including Ginny Thornburgh, former first lady of Pennsylvania. More than 1,200 people are on the mailing list for the Byberry Walton newsletter, which Pat Worthington Stopper sends out twice a year.

Stopper, 65, is descended from William and is as enthusiastic as Bea Walton.

“I have sleepless nights, and I come out here and I take that Book 1 and I read it, word for word,” Stopper said at her home recently.

The book is weighty, a bound history of Waltons that is nearly 2 inches thick. It is full of good stories – in small type.

Reprinted from Philly.com

Finding the connection to the Waltons was how I was able to research the family roots back in multiple directions that include Quaker ancestors, who greeted William Penn when he arrived, and early Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam (a.k.a. New York City). I am pleased to say that my mother-in-law has numerous autosomal DNA matches to others with Walton family connections. Some matches tie into William Walton, born19 August 1629 in Oxhill, Warwickshire, England, and other ties are more recent. She also has strong DNA connections to matches with Van Zandt ancestors.

Here are a few resources, if you are interested in the Byberry Waltons:

A Family’s Mystery Pondering The Unrecorded Voyage Of Byberry’s Founders

A history of the townships of Byberry and Moreland, in Philadelphia, Pa. : from their earliest settlements by the whites to the present time (1901)

An American Family History: The Walton, Hunn, Kitchen and Grafton Families

Canadian Byberry Waltons

These two volumes are searchable for snippets only on Google Books:

Byberry Waltons: an account of four English brothers, Nathaniel & Thomas & Daniel & William Walton, who settled about 1683 in Byberry Township, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania: with accounts of more than 4000 Waltons and many more by other surnames descended from these four brothers

Byberry Waltons: volume II, continuing the account of four English brothers, Nathaniel & Thomas & Daniel & William Walton, who settled about 1683 in Byberry Township, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, with new information gathered since publication of the original Byberry Waltons in 1958

The first volume is also available if you have a subscription to Ancestry.com.

Hint: This book can be a daunting to search. It may be easier to find a specific Walton in the index or, better still, a non-Walton spouse; you can browse indexed Waltons starting on page 803.

Tags: Brown, Byberry Waltons, Norman Walton Swayne, Walton Permalink

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Katharina Von Bora – My 11x Great Grandmother Was a Runaway Nun – 52 Ancestors #47

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

Entry #47

My 11x great-grandmother was Katharina von Bora. In week 13, I blogged about how it was part of my heritage, even as a child, to know that I was descended from Martin Luther. While I did not know very much about Katharina von Bora, my grandpa did tell me that she had been a nun before she married Martin Luther. That was and is something that has been difficult to grasp…to know that you are descended from two people who never should have married according to the religious tenants and mores of their time.

Katharina von Bora – painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder

The story has far more depth than I knew as a child. (Don’t all stories?) Katharina (Katie) was born January 29, 1499; this date is reasonably certain, because it is engraved on a medallion, which still exists today. Her parents are conjectured to be Hans von Bora and Anna Haubitz or Haugwitz, but is has not been verified. Further, it seems that there are up to 15 locations that claim to be her birthplace. Eight of these can be discounted. It may be that she came from Lippendorf near Borna, which is approximately 15 miles south of Leipzig. Katharina’s parents are always described as “impoverished nobility.” It is known that her mother died in 1504, whereupon Hans von Bora remarried. Katie was sent to a Benedictine cloister in Brehna to be educated. Four years later, she was informed that she was destined to become a nun, and she was transferred to the Convent Marienthron in Nimbschen located near Grimma. At 16, Katharina took her vows.

The growing reformation movement could not help but have its impact on the monasteries and cloisters. Katharina was not alone among her peers in developing an interest in the challenges to Rome. She contacted Luther to plead for his assistance in escaping from the convent. During the night of 7 April 1523, she and 11 other nuns escaped in a herring wagon. Nine, who could not go to their families, were secreted from Torgau to Wittenberg. Husbands were found for these women, but Katharina was the last of them to go unwed. Apparently she had offers, but she insisted that she would only marry Luther or a certain one of his friends. Luther was torn about how his marriage might impact the movement. He wrote, “I am not now inclined to take a wife. Not that I lack the feelings of a man (for I am neither wood nor stone), but my mind is averse to marriage because I daily expect the death decreed to the heretic.” Nonetheless, he decided upon marriage, although he did not reveal this immediately to some of his closest colleagues. Part of his decision must have been in deference to his father, who was never in favor of the monastic life for his son. On June 13, 1525, Kaherine Von Bora and Martin Luther were wed. Married life seems to have been a pleasant surprise to Luther. Among Luther’s writings is a statement that “There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion, or company than a good marriage.”

It wasn’t until I was well into my adulthood until I came to appreciate what an accomplished woman Katharina von Bora was. As a wedding gift, John Frederick, Elector of Saxony, gave Luther the Black Cloister, the abandoned former Augustinian monastery. Martin Luther was not adept at running a household, but his wife was. She took over running the estate, planted a garden, raised cattle and even brewed beer. For a time she had a hospital on the property and ministered to the sick. Katharina even oversaw the distribution of her husband’s printed writings whenever he was absent.

The Luther household was a lively one. To help with finances, Katherine’s household included student borders who populated the dinner table. Together Katherine and Martin had six children – Johannes (1526-1575), Elizabeth (1527-1528), Magdalena (1529-1542), Martin (1531-1565), Paul (1533-1593), and Margaretha (1534-1570). Additionally, they took in and reared the children of other family members.

Martin Luther was essentially penniless when they married, but at the time of his death in 1546 he was a man of comfortable means, in a large part due to his Katie. He trusted the business sense of his wife enough to make her his heir and the executrix of his estate – not a common thing in his day. The Elector was prepared to honor Luther’s wishes, but the judges would not allow a woman to inherit property. Further, they appointed guardians for her minor children as was the custom. Katie appears to have been grief stricken upon her husband’s death. To make matters worse, war followed and she had to flee the Black Cloister on several occasions. Upon return to Wittenburg, she found her lands pillaged and she lived in relative poverty, except for the help of noble benefactors. During the Black Plague in 1552, Katherine was making her way to Torgau when her cart overturned. She died of her injuries several months later on 20, December 1552.

Katherine must have been an extraordinary woman. How many people have a female ancestor who has been commemorated by a postage stamp?

This poem about Katharina von Bora is attributed to M. Balthassar Mencius:

I am known as Katharina von Bora
born in the lands of Meissen
of an old and noble line.
Like my ancestors of past
serving God and the Roman Empire
with honor and glory.

As I came of age
I accepted a life of virtue
while everyone was enamored
with the Pope and his den of monks.
And highly regarded were the nuns.
I was sent to the cloister Nimbschen.
I observed there both honor and duty.
I called to God, and prayed day and night
for the welfare of all Christendom.
God heard me and was pleased.

Doctor Luther, the courageous hero
Was selected as my husband
to whom I in a virtuous marriage
bore three sons and daughters.
I lived as a widow for seven years
after the death of my lord.

And in the lovely city of Torgau
my body was buried;
awaiting the trumpet call
when all the dead will rise.
Then, with my lord (husband),
I shall sing and praise God eternally;
and with those who are chosen
live joyfully, eternally.

Tags: descendants of Martin Luther the Reformer, Katharina von Bora, Martin Luther Permalink

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Friederike Emilie Haehnert – A Secret Kept for 156 Years – 52 Ancestors #46

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

Entry #46

In entry #45, I alluded to a bombshell discovered within the marriage certificate of my great grandfather, Emil Heirich Max Lindner. I was expecting to see Christiane Charlotte Püschel listed as my great grandfather’s mother; but, she was not. Here is the top half of the marriage record with the translation below:

The stone mason Emil Heinrich Max Lindner, Lutheran, born 8 February 1858, residing in Dresden, Dürersterstr. 36e. Son of Friederike Emilie Hachnert, residing in Grossenhain, now married Koekel, and of the carpenter Emil Heinrich Max Lindner, residing in Dresden.

What?!!! Who was Friederike Emilie Hachnert (Hänert)? I had never heard this name before. I was pretty sure that I was always told my two times great grandmother was Charlotte Püschel. Did I misunderstand somewhere along the way? I went back to my sources. In a previous post, I also talked about being descended from Martin Luther, the Reformer. First, I checked the Luther Familienblätter for July 1936. This is a bulletin that ran Luther family news and updated his family tree as submissions were accepted from descendents with a proven heritage. I am reproducing the portion that pertains to this particular generation of my family:

I believe this information came from Uncle Gus, my great grandfather’s brother. It distinctly states that Max Lindner and Charlotte Püschel had the following children:

1. Emil Max Heinrich
2. Heinrich August Gustav
3. Clara Pauline Minna

There is no mention of Friederike Emilie Haehnert.

My next source was my aunt. She is very sharp for her 93 years. I phoned her and asked her point blank if she knew who Grandpa’s grandmother had been. She said her name was Püschel We talked about how her dad, my grandfather, Otto Lindner came to the United States in 1912 after his grandfather died to be with his grandmother in Cincinnati. He lived with her for a while.

Charlotte Püschel

Except, Otto’s grandmother was not his grandmother. The marriage document tells us otherwise.

Finally, I searched for the photo of Charlotte Püschel. I have just one. I wanted to see how it was identified. As I remembered, it says, Uncle Gus’ mother, Grandma Lindner, R.O. Lindner’s grandmother, died 1913; Grave at Vine Street Hill Cemetery. There can be no doubt that Otto was saying that this is Charlotte Püschel and his grandmother. Also, I distinctly remember him telling me that she was.

So, I think I stumbled across a secret that was more than a century and a half old. Max and Gus had different mothers and were half-brothers. Obviously, Max knew this. The marriage record says that a birth certificate was provided. There are so many questions, though. Did Gus and Minna know, or was it kept from them. Who gave the information in the Familienblätter. I always thought that it had come from Gus, but perhaps it came from his father. Or maybe Gus knew the truth, but it may have been a shameful secret. This makes me wonder about the relationship between Friederike Emilie Haehnert and Emil Max Heinrich Lindner. Was it a conjugal one, were they divorced, or perhaps they were never married. Clearly, on 7 May 1887, at the time that my grandfather’s parents married, both of Max’s parents were living in different places (Grossenhain and Dresden) and married to different people.

There are serious ramifications to this discovery. I have a boxful of photos and postcards from Buchholz, Chemnitz, Charlotte Püschel’s home. I have not been able to read much of them because the script is so difficult. I have a well-researched branch on my tree for Charlotte. None of these people are related to me!

Will I ever be able to find out anything about Otto’s real grandmother? Did my great, great grandfather’s christening certificate survive the air raids in Dresden? Trying to find the truth will be my next genealogy adventure.

Tags: Cincinnati, Dresden, Haehnert, Hähnert, Lindner, Püschel Permalink

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Unknown Kessler 2x Great-Grandfather – Name Found! – 52 Ancestors #45

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on November 17, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Lindner

Entry #45

I was so surprised to learn that Ancestry.com had made available a collection of birth and marriage records from Saxony, Germany. I was under the impression that most records in Dresden were destroyed. My great-grandmother, Anna Maria Kessler Linder, was killed during the fire-bombing of Dresden and I blogged about her in week 3.

In week 18, I also wrote a blog post about Uncle Oswald, who I believe was a Kessler. I had lamented not knowing the names of my grandfather’s maternal grandparent,s since we talked about his paternal ancestors frequently.

Imagine my surprise to find the marriage record for Emil Max Heinrich Lindner and Anna Maria Kessler. I was thrilled to find the names of my great, great- grandparents. Here is the lower portion of the document, which is that part that that relates to Anna Maria.

I appealed to the German Genealogy Records Transcription Facebook group for help in deciphering of the old German handwriting. This is a group that specializes in transliteration rather than translation of documents. Fortunately, Ute Brandenburg provided both, for which I am most grateful. Here is what I learned:

The cook Anna Maria Kessler, Lutheran, born on 29 November 1860 in Freiberg, residing in Dresden, Kaitzensten?str. 9. Daughter of the carpenter Friedrich Ernst Kessler and his wife Johanne Christiane nee Strassburger, both residing in Freiberg.

Now, I have the names of my grandfather’s maternal grandparents and my belief that they came from Freiburg is confirmed. I was also interested to learn that my great-grandmother was a cook. This makes sense since the Linders operated a Hofbrau. This would be big news on any given genealogical day, but the top half of the marriage record held a genealogical bombshell! I will handle that the big surprise in my next 52 Ancestors blog post.

Great, great grandparents – Friedrich Ernst Kessler and Johanne Christiane Strassburger Kessler from Freiberg, Saxony

Tags: Anna Maria Kessler, Dresden, Freiberg, Friedrich Ernst Kessler, Johanne Christiane Strassburger, Saxony Permalink

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James Burton Evans – A Teen Stabbed on the Street in Philadelphia – 52 Ancestors #44

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on November 15, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Sigmund

Entry #44

I have three historic newspaper subscriptions, and I try to search for ancestors and their offspring in the appropriate collections. Sometimes the news is disturbing. In the case of 15-year-old James Burton Evans, who was the son of Abner James Evans and Mary E. Brown Evans, it was fatal. The family tragedy of the Evans family (my mother-in-law’s side) is recounted in this news article from the Philadelphia Inquirer of Tuesday, January 4, 1881.

Case. A Lad of Fourteen Stabs a Young Acquaintance. Death of the Victim Date: Tuesday, January 4, 1881 Paper: Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA) Volume: CIV Page: 1

This is the follow -up on the inquest.

Inquest in the Case of the Boy, James Burton Evans Date: Thursday, January 6, 1881 Paper: Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA) Volume: CIV Page: 2

Tags: Abner J Evans, James Burton Evans, Philadelphia Permalink

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Andrew Miller (Müller) – Proud of his Civil War Service -52 Ancestors #43

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on November 11, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Biermann

Entry #43

My dad has never been able to tell me much about our ancestors. For the most part his knowledge was limited to the family that he knew growing up. Sometimes he will even tell me that he never knew that a cousin of his was a relative, so he certainly can’t tell me just how we are cousins.

Andrew Miller, his great grandfather, was one exception. He didn’t have a lot to say about him, but he was aware that he fought in the American Civil War. As a boy, dad remembers playing with a coat from the barn that belonged to Andrew during the service, not his uniform, but an overcoat of sorts. The other thing that stuck with dad is a story that was passed down from Andrew Miller about his company marching and not having enough water. Out of desperation, the men in his company drank water that had collected in hoof prints on the road. My dad still brings that up any time I ask him about Andrew. At 92, the story has stuck with my dad.

Andrew Miller was born Andreas Müller (Mueller) in Kleinniedesheim, Frankenthal, Rheinland-Pfalz on 19 November 1845, the son of Phillip Müller and Catharine Reich Müller. He was the youngest in the family with three sisters Maria (1835 – 1913), Eva (1840 – 1899), and Margaretha (1843 – ?) and one older brother, Phillip (1838 – 1862), that I have definitively identified. The family is found traveling to the USA and they arrived together on 9 Aug 1852 aboard the General Dunlop from Liverpool. There was also an August Müller traveling with the family. I have found no christening record for him, and I am not sure if he was Andrew’s brother or not. The Müller family settled in Pomeroy, Ohio. Eventually, over the course of 25 years, all of the family moved, in turn, to Cincinnati. Two of the girls married men named Hess, there, although I cannot prove that the spouses were related. Margaretha seemed to disappear; after arriving in New York, I have no further record of her. (Update – I found christening and confirmation records for Anna Maria Augusta Müller in Hanau and Kleiniedesheim respectively. She was born on 25 July 1834 making her the eldest sister. She was probably misidentified as a male on the ship’s manifest.)

Andrew’s brother Philipp was among the first to join the Union Army when war broke out. He enlisted with other Germans on 8 September 1861 in Mason City, Virginia. He served with the 1st Virginia (West Virginia) Cavalry until he was shot during action in 1862. His story is told in a previous blog post.

Andrew was not really of age to join the fight right after his brother died. Of course, that didn’t stop many young men. Finally, he enlisted in Company K, Ohio 187th Infantry Regiment on 2 March 1865. The war was winding down and he served under a year, mustering out on 20 January 1866 at Macon, Georgia. Andrew’s company did not see a lot of action. Most of the time, he was on provost duty in Macon.

Andrew married Kate Wippel in October of 1866. She was born in Pomeroy and I would say there was a good chance he knew her most of his life. Kate had been raised Catholic and Andrew Protestant, but they were joined in holy matrimony by a Lutheran minister, Lubert Theiss. No doubt this raised objections in staunchly Catholic Wippel family as Kate may have lied about her age on the marriage license. She claimed to be 18, but was probably one month shy of needing consent to marry.

Together Kate and Andrew had ten children, of whom eight survived into adulthood:

Andrew’s occupation was that of cooper. We had a few small barrels that he made in our attic when I was growing up. Unfortunately, My great, great grandfather suffered from dysentery and piles most of his adult life. He claimed that it limited his ability to work. This is recorded in his pension application, which he had trouble proving. Although his first requests were denied, after a long correspondence, he was approved. Despite the hassle in getting his pension, Andrew was proud of his military service. He was a member of the G.A.R. the following photo came from a cousin, Ruth Kortgardner. It was badly damaged and he digital image was restored to some degree.

Andrew Müller (now Miller) also spent time being hospitalized in the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Dayton, Ohio. He died in Cincinnati on 22 October 1916, one day after Kate’s and his 50th wedding anniversary. He is buried in Dayton National Cemetery.

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Jochen Hinrich Schoof – Did He and His Wife Die Together? 52 Ancestors #42

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on November 3, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Biermann

Entry #42
After nearly three weeks traveling in China, this will be a brief catch-up post. It is based on a question I had while researching my Ruwolt family. Anna Maria Schoof (born October 1764, in Satow, Doberan, Mecklenburg) married Jochen Hinrich Hans “Schwieger Hinrich” Ruwoldt (born April 1760 in Satow). Anna Maria was the daughter of Jochen Hinrich Schoof and Elisabeth Allwardt. There is not a lot of information on this couple. Grit Ende records that Jochen Hinrich Schoof was born in 1725 and, for his wife, there is no date of birth, but the information provided says that she came from Stülow.

What caught my attention were the dates of death and burial for this husband and wife. They are both recorded as having died in March 1776 in Rederank, a town just a little over 7 miles from Satow. Jochen Hinrich Schoof was buried on 26 March and his wife was buried on 28 March in Satow.

I am now very curious about their dates of death being so close together. First, I am not sure if they were residing in Rederank or Satow. The first thing that came to mind was that they may have been carried off by an epidemic. Indeed, there was a worldwide influenza epidemic (putrid fever) from 1774 to 1776 to which they may have succumbed. I also think of highly contagious diseases like tuberculosis, which often spreads in close living quarters. Could there have been an accident that involved both spouses? Maybe they became the victims of a fire. Because homes were heated by fire into the 19th century, it was a common cause of accidental death.

There may or may not be a way to find out what happened to my fifth great grandparents, but I will add this to my list of research activities.

Tags: Allwardt, Ruwolt, Satow Mecklenburg, Schoof Permalink

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Christian Ruwolt – My Intertwined Mecklenburg Ruwolts – 52 Ancestors #41

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on October 15, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Biermann

Entry #41

Christian Ruwolt is now my most distant Mecklenburg ancestor. Earlier this year I was able to confirm that Friederica Catharina Diederica Ruwolt and Friedrich David Schatz were the parents of my great, great grandfather, John Schatz. There was a very lively discussion about my Ruwolt relatives in the 1819 census for Satow, Bad Doberan, Mecklenburg. My genealogy Facebook friends Dolly and Fritz had some vastly differing opinions about who might be related and how. There were Ruwolts everywhere in Satow in 1819 – far too many to deal with at the time. Recently, I took the time to use a DNA clue, along with Grit Ende’s valuable online resource (http://www.ende-genealogy.de/) to ferret out my Ruwolt ancestors. (Unfortunatley, Grit Ende has given up her website, so I will need to provide sources from the original records!)

My DNA match was with and individual who is descended from Margaretha Elizabeth Christina Ruwolt, who was born 22 Nov 1801 in Satow, Mecklenburg. She married Johann Peter Mundt there on 24 September 1824. I felt pretty confident that there must be a relationship between my Friederica and their Margaretha. It was easy to use Grit Ende’s index of select individuals to find both women. I was able to enter both into my family tree on Ancestry.com and work back until they connected. They did connect, but not directly along their paternal lines as one might expect with a shared surname. I was not surprised to find so many Ruwolts in Satow, but lest you think that it is a common German surname, it doesn’t even fall into the top 100 German last names, which can be viewed here.

Further, the relative distribution of Ruwolt (or more commonly Ruwoldt) is very localized to Landkreis Bad Doberan as illustrated in the following map generated by Christoph Stoepel’s surname distribution map for Germany. Check it out is you are trying to determine where your German ancestors originated, especially if you are blessed with a surname that isn’t on the top 100 list.

So, here is what I found when I followed Friederica’s parentage. Her grandparents were both Ruwolts, although I could not determine how close a kinship they shared. Margaretha’s grandparents were also both Ruwolts, and, again, there was not enough information to quantify the kinship, although I postulate that there is one. For both women, it was their father’s mother that make the Ruwolt DNA connection between biology and historic records. The most recent common ancestors for Friederica and Margaretha were their mutual great grandparents, Christian Ruwolt (born 1700) and his wife Anna Schumacher (born 1707). Friederica and Margaretha were second cousins. The following trees show the ancestry of each individual:

Tree for Margaretha Elizabeth Christina Ruwolt

Finally, I want to thank the participants of the Facebook group for Mecklenburg Genealogy. It is a great place to jump start your Mecklenburg family research!

Tags: DNA, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Ruwoldt, Ruwolt, Schatz Permalink

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Johann Hans Michel Sigmund – The Ordeal of the Love and Unity – 52 Ancestors #40

Posted by Cheryl Biermann Hartley on October 11, 2014 in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Sigmund

Entry #40

It is not my intention to write the definitive history of Johann Michael Sigmund. My mother-in-law’s cousin, Nancy Schanes has done most of the research on the Sigmund family and I gratefully acknowledge her work. I met Nancy this past summer and I immediately felt the bond that can develop between two people who are passionate about family history and who love unraveling the mysteries of the past. I learned that we both believe that there are ancestors who want to be found. I won’t go into that here, but Nancy and I spent hours swapping stories of strange coincidences that led our research in the right direction.

Johann Michael Sigmund was the founder of my mother-in-law’s Sigmund line in the Americas. Sigmund was her maiden name. Michael was born in Wieblingen near Heidelburg in December 1713 to Jakob Sigmund and Anna Margaretha Lay Sigmund. The Sigmund family was involved in farming grapes for the wine trade.

Johann Michel Sigmund’s story could inspire a television docudrama. In May 1731 he and other Palentines boarded the Ship Love and Unity in Rotterdam, Netherlands, bound for Philadelphia in the Colony of Pennsylvania. If ever a ship were misnamed, it was the Love and Unity. One hundred of 150 people aboard the Love and Unity perished at sea due to an excessively long voyage and possible criminal acts by the Master of the ship, Jacob Lobb. Food was rationed and passengers resorted to eating rats. The surviving passengers accused Jacob Lobb of holding them offshore in order to extort money and possessions from them in return for food and water. Eventually, the passengers mutinied and were finally rescued off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard in New England. Here is one account of their story:

Summary of the Love and Unity - Immigration Commissioners NY

Immigration, and the Commissioners of Emigration of the State of New York Author Friedrich Kapp Publisher Douglas Taylor, 1870 Original from Ghent University Digitized Mar 28, 2011

Several of the passengers accused Jacob Lobb of murder and extreme cruelty, and he was held for trial in Bosyton. Further accounts of the appeal can be read read here. Not only did the Palentine accusers lose their case, but they were charged to pay court costs. A newspaper account from the Boston Gazette of June 5, 1732, covers the outcome of the trial.

News Account of Jacob Lobb’s Trial

In retaliation, Jacob Lobb, brought charges against the Palentine passengers in September 1732.

Johann Michel Sigmund finally arrived in Philadelphia on the Norris from Boston on 15 May 1732. It took him almost exactly a year to arrive at his original destination.

Tags: Jacob Lobb, Johann Michael Sigmund, Love and Unity Permalink

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Anna Catherina Eviflon – No One in the World Has this Surname – 52 Ancestors # 39

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

Entry #39

The name of my husband’s great, great grandmother was given to me as Anna Catherina Eviflon. It can be a blessing and a curse to receive information that was recorded by elderly relatives about their ancestors. I am not sure who in the Brown or Holtzman family typed up the one page rudimentary family tree, but I ended up with information that was suspicious.

The little that I have on Anna Catherina Eviflon states that she was born on December 20, 1851, in Germany. She married John Frederick Holzmann in 1872. They had seven children in 18 years. She died on July 7, 1914, in Baltimore, Maryland, at the age of 62. I have had no luck in finding out any more about her because Eviflon is, simply stated, not a real surname. Search any of the major genealogical record repositories and no one who has ever lived appears to have had the surname of Eviflon.

I have tried to use my imagination to come up with a name that might phonetically be close. Of course, it should probably be a German surname. Using the Soundex Generator I get a Code of E114, but that leads me nowhere. The closest matches in most searches that I’ve run are names like Ebbefeld or Evavold. The single nearest match has been Evafli, which apparently is Hungarian. My only other guess is that perhaps the full name was really Anna Catherina EVA Flon. In Other words, the surname could have been Flon which is a legitimate name.

Not one of these possibilities has led me to Anna Catherine, though. Leave a note if you have any leads on this strange, and probably mangled surname. By the way, here is a link to Rootsweb’s Soundex Converter: http://resources.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/soundexconverter

Tags: Anna Catherina Eviflon Permalink

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