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Rebirth

"Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes; work never begun." - Christina Rossetti

As a chronic perfectionist with ADHD, it's not unusual for me to have multiple unfinished projects and even more guilt associated with said unfinished projects. I had the best intentions of reviving this blog back in 2018 but life once again got in the way. I made peace with that because I'm proud of what I've written so far and starting something that doesn't get finished is better than doing nothing at all.

This time, my 52 Ancestors Blog is being "reborn" with the same intentions but more self-forgiveness if it doesn't go as planned. After all, even moderately good writing takes time, and good writing about genealogy seems to take even more time. Raising monarch butterflies over the last three summers has taught me that I can't rush the process of bringing something to life. I'm doing my research and writing well in advance so that I will be ready to start posting by July (Weeks 30 - 52).

Amy Johnson Crow has revised the list of 52 topics in the years since she started it, but for the most part I'm going to stick with the original prompts that I was using back in 2017. If you're reading this in real time, thanks for checking in on my little blog and make sure to come back in a few months to look for updates.

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Second Chance

My goal in 2017 was to write one blog post per week about my ancestors. 52 ancestors in 52 weeks. Due to various events in my personal and professional life, it became increasingly difficult to mentally and emotionally keep up with it. After several months of self reflection I finally decided that part of the cure for what ails me is to reconnect with my passions. So please forgive my lapse and thank you for your readership. I will pick up right where I left off starting with Week 30 published later this week and I will try my best to keep up. I hope you enjoy it!

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Week 29: “Challenging” Sarah Isaacs (September 30, 1820 - September 26, 1848)

There are many challenges that can block a genealogist's research.  In the case of Sarah Isaacs, it's mostly bad timing.  Sarah was born in 1820 at a time when women didn't have the same social and legal standing as men. The U.S. Federal census, which is taken every ten years, initially only recorded names for the heads of households and women were rarely, if ever, heads of households.  Other people in the household were recorded with tally marks in categories for age and gender.  Unless women were widows with property, their status (and census appearance) depended solely on their father or husband.

Because Sarah was born in September, she doesn't show up as a tally mark on her father's census (the effective date of the 1820 census was August 7).  In order to "find" her on the 1830 and 1840 census, I would need to know the name of her father and then assume that one of the tally marks represents her.  By 1850, the census started recording the names of everyone in a household (although it still didn't list relationships; wife, daughter, son, niece, boarder, etc.).  Unfortunately this change doesn't help with my research because Sarah Isaacs died in 1848, most likely from complications of childbirth.  If not for a recorded family history passed down to me, I would never even know she existed (especially since her husband, George took a second wife with the same first name)!

Other records that can help identify a person's identity and ancestry haven't been much help either.  Birth registration wasn't required in Maryland until 1898, and I can't find a baptism record because I don't know her religion.  Sarah and George Brandenburg registered civilly for marriage but the ledger only lists their names, marriage date, preacher, and registration fee.  None of that information helps me track down her origins.  When she died, there was no death certificate (it wasn't required prior to 1865) and she was most likely buried in a family cemetery plot where a headstone is likely long lost to time.

So my challenge is to prove her ancestry and vital statistics through other means.  The marriage license ledger is a good start.  I also found her husband, George, listed in the will of a man named Joseph Isaacs.  Even though he remarried, could it be that he remained close with his father-in-law?  Perhaps Joseph Isaacs is Sarah's father?  The coincidence is too strong to ignore.  Stay tuned!

*The photograph displayed above is labeled “Grandmother Isaacs.”  Logically, that would indicate that it is a photograph of Sarah’s mother.  I will post it again later without her face obscured.

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Week 28: “Musical”

Eleanora Catherine Vogler (March 3, 1910 - July 16, 2000)

It goes without saying that my beloved adopted grandmother was a musical person. One of my earliest memories of visiting Nana is sitting next to her at the baby grand piano and watching her play a tune. I loved "playing" that piano, even though most of the time I was just banging on keys. I remember that Nana hated me playing Chopsticks or Heart and Soul; probably because she heard them way too many times during her career as a music teacher. 

Eleanora Catherine Vogler was born to Anna Gaetschenberger and George Vogler in New York City in 1910 and came of age right at the end of the period known as the “roaring 20s.” Her father was a musical man, filling his two daughters' lives with song. The Voglers were Catholic and Eleanora attended St. Brendan’s High School; graduating in 1928. In 1929, she became a music and art teacher in a public elementary school and a "licensed pianist" for the NYC Board of Education playgrounds that summer. Prior to marrying a fellow teacher, William Denzer, in 1934, she completed 3 years of college and was active in the local social scene. In the spring of 1931 she was the lead in “The College Widow,” a play put on by the St. Matthias Social Club. In the spring of 1932 she was the toastmaster at the second annual St. Brendan's high school alumni communion breakfast, a pianist for the St. Brendan's alumnae St. Patrick's Day reunion dinner, and held a principal role in a musical comedy "The Million Dollar Smile.” In the spring of 1933 she was a chairperson for the St. Brendan’s Alumni Dance Committee and an accompanist in a musical program at the St. Brendan’s alumni tea. That fall, she continued her amateur acting career by performing in “Is Zat So?” for the St. Matthias Silver Jubilee banquet. 

Once Eleanora and William adopted their children, Eleanora chose to stay at home and raise them. Their first child was an abandoned infant adopted from a New York City orphanage. Eventually they chose to adopt again, and this time they looked overseas where they found four German orphans looking for a home. Eleanora passed her love of music on to her adopted children. Both of her daughters and one son took piano lessons and her other son, my father, was in the church choir. Her musical nature can continue to be found in her grandchildren, and hopefully will continue to be for generations.

Picture Sources:

Collection of Jennifer Weaver. (ca. 1932). Eleanora Catherine Vogler.

Collection of Jennifer Weaver. (1992). Eleanora Catherine Denzer.  Please contact her for permission to use the image in any way.

My family tree with blog subjects highlighted

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Week 27: “Road Trip”

Joseph August Geisen (1811 - February 26, 1896)

Traveling in the early 1800’s was not quite as easy as it is today.  Roads were dusty or muddy wagon paths, few bridges spanned the intersecting waterways, and the “luxuries” of food and lodging were not readily available for a weary traveler.  Joseph Geisen was lucky to have lived at a time when transportation in America had just started making travel a little easier.  Steam powered trains came on the scene in the 1830s and by 1850, the B&O railroad could take people from Baltimore to West Virginia twice as fast as a horse-drawn wagon. Roads were improving, too, with the most well-used getting layers of sand and gravel. 

Joseph August Geisen was born in Prussia in 1811.  It’s not clear when or why he immigrated to America, but in 1851, he married Anna Marie Feldhaus at St. James Church in Baltimore.  Joseph and Mary had three children while living in Baltimore; John Henry, Mary Elizabeth, and Catherine Anne.  In 1858, Joseph’s brother-in-law, a shoemaker named Bernard Geisen, purchased farm property in Howard County and offered Joseph the opportunity to make a living off of it. So Joseph packed up his young family for a road trip.  Tickets for a short train ride to Ellicott City were probably just beyond the family’s budget, so they likely rode for 3-4 hours in a horse-drawn wagon.

The Geisens remained close with the Feldhaus family in Baltimore and probably took several trips back and forth.  We have evidence of at least one such trip in 1862 when Joseph Geisen stood as a godparent to Bernard Feldhaus’ son, Bernard Joseph.  Joseph and Mary had one more child, a daughter named Anna Elizabeth, and the family remained in Howard County even after Bernard sold the farm in 1868.  Several years ago, I took my own road trip to Howard County to pay my respects to my great, great, great grandfather; Joseph died in 1896 in Illchester and is buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery on Illchester Road.

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Week 26: “Halfway”

William Henry Gordon (March 1830? - May 12, 1913)

Summer time is great for genealogy research.  During the past three summers, I made sure not to over book myself and was able to visit Ellis Island, the Library of Congress, the MD State archives, MD historical society library, the Holocaust Museum Library, as well as several genealogical society libraries, churches, and cemeteries.  This year I have a school-aged child who is also on summer break, so my time to spend on genealogy is significantly less. Because of that, as well as vacation and work trips, I've reached the halfway point of my 52 Ancestors challenge two weeks late!  I'm trying to catch up by releasing two posts at a time and I appreciate your continued readership.

Speaking of halfway, there are always some ancestors that make genealogists feel like they are perpetually halfway through researching them.  With those "brick wall" ancestors it's a Sisyphean journey of tracking down leads and raising hopes only to fall back down to ground zero.  For me, that brick wall is William Henry Gordon.  At this point, I'm convinced he was dropped here on earth by aliens at the age of 22.

William Gordon was born sometime between 1826 and 1834 in Maryland. The first record I have found with his name is a Montgomery County marriage license for him and Matilda Earp on January 8, 1852 (pictured above). All subsequent records (civil war draft registration, census, obituary, death certificate, tombstone) provide only conflicting birth years and reported origins in Maryland.  I have no idea who his parents are or where exactly William came from.  He was a farm laborer and based on searches for land records, tax assessments, and probate, it doesn't appear that he ever owned any property. Civil birth registration wasn't required prior to 1865 (and not consistently enforced until 1914!) so without knowing what church he may have been baptized in, I don't know that I will ever find out his actual birthdate.

My biggest lead so far actually came yesterday when I discovered a Charles V. Gordon who also mysteriously appeared in Montgomery County's 5th District in 1852 with a significant amount of taxable property ($7,000 shown in the photo below).  Charles subsequently appears on a 1855 tax assessment for a large real estate property, as well as in 1852-1857 land transfer records and an 1860 landowner map.  Perhaps Charles is a close relative of William's (brother? uncle? father?) and the two of them settled in Montgomery County together when William met and married Matilda.  Cross your fingers for me that this lead amounts to something and stay tuned!

My family tree with blog subjects highlighted

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Week 25: “Old Homestead”

William Henry Plummer (April 22, 1900 - March 12, 1982)

William Henry Plumer was born in 1900 to Margaret and Frederick Plumer.  As I shared in an earlier post, Frederick Plumer owned land not too far from my current home, in a place called Gardenville.  Some time after Frederick’s death in 1920, the Plumer family decided to sell their home and move further northeast.  It’s possible that like many other farmers of the time, the income from their truck farm declined after World War I.  Or perhaps they were burdened by increased taxes after the 1918 annexation of Baltimore County (including Gardenville) by Baltimore City. For whatever reason, William’s older brother, Joseph, purchased what is known as the Perry Hall Mansion on December 30, 1924.  William, Joseph, their mother Margaret, and older sisters Clara and Louise, moved into their new home that winter, and when William married Eva Theresa Heil that spring, she moved in as well.  William and Eva raised their three children in the mansion, and even though Margaret, Clara, and Louise eventually moved out, Joseph remained living with his brother’s family up until his death in 1980.  The Plumers remained at Perry Hall Mansion for 24 years until 1948.

I certainly feel blessed that two of my ancestral “homesteads” remain standing in locations convenient for me to visit with my daughter.  Although the Perry Hall Mansion was built 150 years before William and his family inhabited it, I still consider the house in which my grandmother was born to be a family homestead.  You can read more about the mansion, including details from William Plumer’s time there, in the book Images of America: Perry Hall Mansion by Sean Kief and Jeffery Smith.

The second location I consider to be an old homestead is the location where the Plumers moved after selling the Perry Hall Mansion.  Through a complicated three-way real estate deal, Joseph Plumer purchased undeveloped land on Reckord Road in Fallston where he and his brother got to work on the south side of the road building a house set amidst farm fields for Eva and their grown children.  After completing this main residence, William and Joseph got to work building a smaller house a short distance down the street on the north side. This house was where William’s daughter, Sybilla, raised her family.  Eventually William’s oldest child, Adam, built a third house across from Sybilla’s where he then lived and raised his family. Across the street from the main house, the Plumer brothers built and operated a successful sawmill operation that was eventually taken over by Adam and still operates today (under different owners)! So within a quarter-mile span of the road three family homes, some farmland, and a sawmill defined the new Plumer homestead.  All three houses are still standing and in use, though not by my family.

Picture Sources:

Collection of Jennifer Weaver. (ca. 1920). William Henry Plumer.

Collection of Jennifer Weaver. (2013). Photograph of Perry Hall Mansion.  Please contact her for permission to use the image in any way.

Collection of Jennifer Weaver. (2017). Collage of images; Plumer Homestead on Reckord Rd.

My family tree with blog subjects highlighted

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Week 24: “Independence”

William Earp (1729 - 1778) and Erasmus Earp (Abt 1757 - After 1840)

In honor of our nation’s declaration of independence from the British crown, I am spotlighting two of my Revolutionary War era ancestors.  My 6th Great Grandfather, William Earp, was born in 1729 in the Fairfax region of the Virginia colonies.  He married Priscilla Nichols in about 1752 in what is now known as Montgomery County, Maryland.  They had nine children including Erasmus Earp, born about 1757.

According to some sources, William Earp and three of his sons served in the Revolutionary War; Philip, Josiah, and Erasmus.  Although I haven’t yet found documented evidence of his service, there is documentation that on March 2, 1778, William Earp signed the “Patriot’s Oath of Fidelity and Support” to the newly established government.  As enacted by the Maryland General Assembly in 1777, all voters were required to take the oath or risk the penalty of paying triple taxes and being ineligible to vote or hold public office.  Being a direct descendent of an oath swearer makes me eligible to join the Daughters of the American Revolution.

William’s son, Erasmus, applied for a soldier’s pension in 1841 for his brief service in the Revolutionary war.  He was eventually denied a pension because he served less than six months.  Pictured above is his original petition.  Below is a partial transcript: 

 “… entered the Service of the United States under… Major Mountjoy Baley and Captain John Nicholas of Maryland Militia… ." "… know that I joined the company sometime in the summer. I joined my captain as a volunteer at a place now know[n] as the County Cite [sic] of Montgomery and cald [sic] rockville in Maryland and went from there to our rendavous [sic] in Georgetown; and remained there a few days. We were then ordered to Fredericktown in Frederick County, Maryland where I remained for six or eight weeks and acted as a corporal, at which time I was attacked by a violent fever and my captain sent me home… ."

References:

Spencer, S. & Williams, I. E. (2000). The EARP family in America, descendants of our immigrant ancestor Thomas EARP, Jr.

Boyer, G. (1996). Wyatt Earp: Facts, Volume One, Early American Ancestors (1680 To Wyatt's Birth in 1848).

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Week 23: “Heirloom”

Eva Theresa Heil (March 21, 1898 - March 16, 1982)

For this week's theme, I had to decide what qualifies as an heirloom.  According to Miriam-Webster, an heirloom is "something of special value handed down from one generation to another."  Since "special value" can be either monetary or personal, my chosen heirloom is one that I enjoy every Christmas holiday and want to pass on to my daughter; a silvered glass bead garland owned by my maternal great grandmother, Eva Theresa Heil.

Eva was born to German immigrants Adam Heil and Rosa Kirchner in 1898.  Undoubtedly, they brought their German Christmas traditions with them when they emigrated to America, including glass ornaments hung from the tree.  In fact, reflective glass Christmas ornaments were first produced in 1840 in the same Thuringia region where Rosa lived.  Outside of Germany, Christmas trees were primarily decorated with handmade ornaments and edible treats like apples, nuts, cookies, and popcorn.  That changed in the 1880s when F. W. Woolworth started selling imported glass ornaments to the American masses.  By the time Eva was older and had her own Christmas tree to decorate, Americans were completely enamored with German glass ornaments.  Between World Wars I and II, Japan joined the Christmas ornament industry, producing slightly cheaper versions of the popular German decorations.  It was during this time that Eva likely purchased this garland, possibly from a Sears catalog.

I have six strands of beads, along with one of the original boxes.  Based upon the markings on the box (pictured below) and the design of the beads, I have loosely determined them to be from between 1936 and 1941*.  Eva’s daughter, Sybilla, remembers trimming the Christmas tree with her mother.  She doesn’t specifically remember these beads, but does recall other glass ornaments that have been broken and lost over the years.  Those silvered glass ornaments, including this beaded garland, must have reminded Eva of her own childhood Christmases.  The six strands aren’t quite enough for the size of our tree, so I was lucky to stumble upon some similar beads at an antique store many years ago.  Now I alternate the multicolor beads with the silver beads and enjoy my precious heirloom each and every Christmas season.

*The company that manufactured the cardboard box opened its Osaka factory in 1936.  Once World War II began, Japanese imports were put on hold, and during the war most of the factories were damaged or destroyed, including the Osaka location. Although you will often find beads like these listed as “mercury glass,” manufacturers stopped using mercury for silvered glass production in the early 1800’s.  Instead, a solution of silver nitrate and sugar water was used to coat the inside of the glass and color was applied to the outside.  The silver content means that my heirloom beads are susceptible to varnish.  

References:

http://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas-trees

https://corporate.hallmark.com/Newsroom/History-Christmas-Ornament

http://xmasdays.com/store/owhistory.html

https://www.randttreasures.com/information/History-of-Christmas-Ornaments

http://www.rengo.co.jp/english/history/1920.html

Picture Sources:

Collection of Jennifer Weaver. (2016). Silvered glass bead garland.

Collection of Jennifer Weaver. (ca. 1925). Portrait of S. Rosa Heil nee Kirchner.  Please contact her for permission to use the image in any way.

Collection of Jennifer Weaver. (2016). Ornament box label.

Collection of Jennifer Weaver. (2016). Ornament box markings.

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Week 22: “Wedding”

Scholastica Rosa Kirchner (July 13, 1870 - December 26, 1963)

If your June calendar doesn’t include graduation ceremonies and celebrations, it may very well include a wedding or two; hence this week’s theme.  I was curious about why June is such a traditional time for people to get married and there are a lot of theories on the Internet.  But Scholastica “Rosa” Kirchner missed being a June bride by a few days.

Rosa was born in Germany in 1870 in the Thuringia district to Joseph Kirchner and Maria Protzmann.  At some point before she turned 21, Rosa met Adam Heil.  I don’t know the circumstances under which they met nor how long their courtship lasted.  But by the time Adam journeyed to the United States in 1891, he and Rosa were engaged.  According to my grandmother, "He came over [to America] first, but they met each other in Germany before they married and he wanted to get everything settled before she came.”  So Rosa waited two long years before she making her own voyage to Baltimore.  According to the passenger list of the S.S. Weimar, Rosa departed Germany from Bremen on May 18, 1893 and arrived in Baltimore on June 6, 1893.  Her passage was paid for by her “bridegroom” and she had $8 in her possession.

Less than a month after her arrival, on July 4, 1893, Rosa and Adam were married at St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church on the corner of Wolfe and Lombard Streets in Baltimore.  The photo above is their beautiful marriage certificate issued by the church.  Although I don’t have a photograph from their wedding day, other images from that time period paint a picture (see below).  Rosa may have worn a white dress, a popular choice after Queen Victoria’s marriage in 1840.  But it’s more likely that the expense of a new dress led Rosa to simply wear her best "Sunday dress."  Veils, gloves, and bouquets were standard ensemble in 1893 and the bride often wore a crown or garland of orange blossoms to represent fruitfulness and purity.  I don’t know if Adam and Rosa had enough friends and family here in the United States at that time to have bridesmaids and groomsmen, but I’m sure they had at least a small number of people present for their nuptials.  The Heils had their first child 13 months after their wedding, and went on to have seven more.  They had been married for 64 years when Adam passed away in 1957.

Picture Sources:

Collection of Jennifer Weaver. (1893). Marriage Certificate of J. Adam Heil and S. Rosa Kirchner.  Please contact her for permission to use the image in any way.

Collection of Jennifer Weaver. (ca. 1950). Portrait of S. Rosa Heil nee Kirchner.  Please contact her for permission to use the image in any way.

Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. (1890). Wedding Dresses. Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-f24b-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. (1892). Princesse Wedding Gown Of White Veloutine, With Ruffles Of Embroidered Chiffon ; Tulle Veil Fastened With Orange Blossoms. Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-f26c-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Gift of the Martin B. Koon Memorial Collection, Minneapolis Institute of Art. (1893). Marriage. Retrieved from https://collections.artsmia.org/art/47/marriage-gari-melchers

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Week 21: “Commencement”

Charles James Gordon Kramer (October 13, 1925 - April 1, 1977)

It’s that time of year… graduation season!  In 1935, only about 43% of 17 year olds in the United States graduated from high school.  Of those graduates, only 17% went on to earn Bachelor Degrees.  Another even more surprising statistic is that in 1940, only 24% of the TOTAL adult population of the United States had completed at least four years of high school and only 4.6% had completed at least 4 years of college!  Compare those statistics to 2015 when 88% of the total adult U.S. population had at least a high school diploma or GED and about 33% held a bachelor’s degree or higher.  All of this is to say that expectations for formal education has changed a lot in just the last 75 years.

So my maternal grandfather, Charles Kramer, was in the minority when he graduated from high school in 1942.  Using a few old yearbooks found online, I was able to piece together some information on his education.  Charlie, as he was apparently called by his friends, started his high school career in a brand new school building.  In 1939, just in time for Charlie’s freshman year, Howard County officials moved Ellicott City High School into a newly constructed building on Montgomery Road, close to where the Kramers lived.  Charlie must have been both excited and overwhelmed to begin high school.  According to the 1940 census, his older brother, John, did not attend school after the 8th grade, and neither of his parents had more than six years of formal schooling. So Charlie and his other siblings were entering new territory when they began high school.  

After “surviving" his freshman year, Charlie became a sophomore member of the Ellicott City High School Glee club.  But then in either his junior or senior year, he transferred to a new school and had to start all over again.  Two short rides on the numbers 8 and 9 trolleys transported Charlie from Ellicott City to Catonsville to Baltimore City (Irvington) every morning so that he could attend a prestigious Catholic high school.  Charles Kramer graduated from Mount St. Joseph's College in 1942 with a Diploma for completing the “Business English” course of study.  His yearbook photo caption tells us that his interests at the time included stamp collecting, golfing, bookkeeping, and actress Deanna Durbin.  Immediate higher education aspirations were apparently absent, and two years later, in the midst of World War II, Charles enlisted in the Army.  After the war ended, Charles took advantage of the G.I. Bill and enrolled in the University of Maryland, College Park.  His graduation in June of 1950 with a Bachelor of Science in Recreation made him a first generation college graduate on both sides of his family.

Sources:

U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1999

Educational Attainment in the United States: 2015

Last Ellicott Mills Middle-schoolers Pay Homage as an Era Ends

1910 Trolley Map of Baltimore and Suburbs

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Week 20: “Black Sheep”

Clara Estelle Gordon (May 1, 1888 - October 5, 1956)

I don’t really like using the term “black sheep” in my genealogy.  Like many idioms, the origins of this phrase is uncertain, but it is often cited that black wool can't be dyed and is therefore less desirable.  When applied to people, being a “black sheep” usually carries negative connotations.  But a genetically rare black sheep is actually considered good luck by many English shepherds.  This week, with a personal preference for that more positive meaning of "black sheep” (unique as opposed to undesirable), I chose to examine my great-grandmother, Clara Estelle Gordon.

Clara was the sixth child and second daughter of Winfield and Patience.  They were Protestants and appear to have been just as religious as most people of that time.  What sets Clara apart from many of my other ancestors is that she had a child out of wedlock.  So far, I don't have any other documented cases of illegitimacy in my family tree.  There was definitely a negative stigma attached to unwed mothers in 1908 when Clara gave birth to her daughter, Thelma, at the age of 20.  But Clara made the decision to keep and raise Thelma, and in 1915, she married a Catholic gentleman, John Kramer, and had six more children!

Thelma was 11 years older than John and Clara’s eldest daughter together, Margaret. My grandmother remembers not understanding the connection between Thelma and the rest of her Kramer in-laws until someone quietly explained Clara’s “indiscretion."  Clara’s decision to raise her “illegitimate” daughter must have come with challenges.  But it also came with benefits; including one that she couldn’t possibly have foreseen.  When her husband, John, died suddenly in an accident (more on that in a later post), Clara's oldest daughter, Thelma, came to the rescue.  Clara now had six children to care for without a source of income to pay the mortgage.  But Thelma had just gotten married and had a home of her own.  According to my grandmother, Clara packed up her family and moved in with her daughter, Thelma, and son-in-law, Walter.  This extended family remained close until after Clara's death in 1956.

The photo below is Winfield and Patience Gordon presumably with all of their grandchildren at the time the photo was taken. The tall young lady in the back is Clara's daughter, Thelma, and the baby in Winfield’s lap is Clara and John’s daughter, Margaret.

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Week 19: “There’s a Way”

Joseph Vogler (November 6, 1844 - February 12, 1923)

My adopted great, great grandfather, Joseph Vogler, paved his own way towards professional and personal success.  A twenty-something immigrant from Bavaria (present day Germany), Joe arrived in New York City in October of 1866*.  I don't have any official record or indication of why Joe left his home country, but the date of this arrival corresponds closely with the end of the of the Austro-Prussian, or Seven Weeks, War.  Perhaps he decided that a passage to a new continent was a safe way to stay out of the front lines of any future conflicts.

Within two days of his arrival*, Joe Vogler had found his way into the U.S. Army!  I don't know if he planned this or not, but enlisting surely helped him as a new immigrant with no understanding of the English language, no family members to provide a leg up, and no immediate job prospects.  Joe was stationed at Willet's Point (at present day Fort Totten Park) in the engineering regiment.  It appears he was enlisted for five years total*, being discharged at the expiration of his service with the rank of Corporal.  About one month prior to his discharge, he took the oath of allegiance and became a naturalized U.S. citizen.  He married his wife, Bertha Pitts, another Germany immigrant, shortly after his military discharge.

After Fort Totten, Joe first settled in the surrounding Queens community and then in Brooklyn. Except for a short time living in nearby Bayonne City (now Jersey City), he was a lifelong New Yorker.  Joe made his way in masonry as a bricklayer, possibly working on the many infrastructure improvements being implemented by the city in the late 19th century.  He must have been a very hardworking man because by the time he was added to the 1910 census (at the age of 66), he could read and write English, remained actively employed, and owned his own home.  Joe and Bertha had 13 children, though three of them died young.  Because of his large family, Joe put out an ad in the February 9, 1896 Brooklyn Daily Eagle seeking a 9 room house close to the Brooklyn Bridge for $5,500 cash (about $160,000 in today’s value; in the upper middle-class of that time)!  I don’t know if he ever secured that house, but did eventually buy a house on Summerfield Street in Queens.

Joseph Vogler died on February 12, 1923, at the age of 78.

*I am still working on verifying this information.  I have actually come across conflicting sources for Joseph’s immigration and military enlistment.  There are two records for his enlistment, one in 1866, the other in 1868 on the same day that the first enlistment ended.  Based on the dates and strong physical similarities, these could be the same person and Joseph simply reenlisted for another term.  However the 1900 census indicates that he didn’t arrive until a year AFTER that FIRST enlistment and his naturalization record and a possible ship’s passenger list has him arriving just BEFORE the SECOND enlistment.  So they could also be two different Joseph Voglers.

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Week 18: “Where There’s a Will”

Brandenburgs: Alexander, Anna, Jacob Samuel, and Jacob

The Brandenburg ancestors have been challenging to research for a number of reasons (one of which is the various spellings of their last name).  My research is pretty solid back to my 3 Great Grandfather, Jacob Brandenburg, but beyond that, it has been a less clear.  The most helpful evidence by far has been Brandenburg wills!

When doing genealogy, the rule is to start with the most recent and work your way back.  My great, great, great grandfather, Jacob, was born in 1790 and according to multiple Brandenburg genealogy sources, his parents were Jacob Samuel and Elizabeth (Rein).  But I needed further proof to verify this information.  So I researched Jacob Samuel Brandenburg and found a transcription of his will.  In it he bequeaths everything to his wife, Elizabeth.  At her death, Jacob S. specifies that his estate should be divided evenly between his married children; John, Mary, Jesse, William, Lemuel, and Mahala; his (presumably) unmarried daughter Priscilla; and the children of his deceased son, Jacob.  Since my family records state that Jacob died in 1831, prior to Jacob S.’s death in 1838, his will is evidence that I have the correct information about Jacob’s parents.  It isn’t foolproof, but it’s a start!

The next step backwards was to determine who Jacob Samuel Brandenburg’s parents were, and here things get murky.  Pretty much every single published Brandenburg family history provides very little (or very confusing) information about Jacob’s possible parents.  I decided to dig into each of the possibilities and once again found my evidence in a will.  This time, it was the wills of Alexander Henry Brandenburg and Anna Brandenburg of Frederick County. Alexander bequeaths a cow and calf to his daughter Barbara and a cow and calf to his son Conrad.  In typical German tradition, he leaves the rest of his estate, including his farm “Chance” pictured above, to his youngest son, Jacob. Because she was not specifically mentioned in Alexander’s will, I am unclear whether Jacob S. immediately inherited the estate when when his father died in 1793, or if his mother, Anna, actually inherited it.  However when she died in 1809, her will left ten shillings each to Barbara and Conrad and the remainder of her estate to Jacob and his heirs (you can see her will in the photo below). This leads me to believe that she retained the rights of the property until her own death.

Could the Jacob in Alexander’s and Anna’s wills be someone other than Jacob Samuel Brandenburg?  Of course!  And could the Jacob mentioned in Jacob Samuel’s will be someone other than my great, great, great grandfather Jacob Brandenburg?  Sure!  But the dates, places, and associated names all provide strong support for the accuracy of my Brandenburg lineage.

Resources:

Photo of “Chance” farm site from Brandenburg researcher Pat Bristley via the Brandenburg Family Heritage page

My family tree with blog subjects highlighted

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Week 17: “Prosper”

Herman Henry Kramer (July 2, 1862 - February 19, 1917)

My great, great grandfather, Hermann Heinrich Krämer, arrived in the port of Baltimore aboard the ship Braunschweig on July 1, 1880.  He was born to Hermann and Margarethe Elisabeth on July 2, 1862 in Ueffeln, Hannover, Germany which is a small village near present-day Bramsche.  Herman was an 18 year old farmer when he immigrated to the United States, and although he travelled alone, it appears he may have planned to join his older sister, Elizabeth, who settled in Howard County, Maryland in 1872.

In May of 1883, at the age of 21, Herman was baptized at Saint Paul Roman Catholic Church in Ellicott City as a convert from the German Evangelical Church.  This strange timing is because of his desire to wed Mary Elizabeth Geisen, a devout Catholic.  The two were married in November of 1883 and nine months later, were blessed with their first child, August Joseph Geisen.

Mary and Herman’s marriage was a prosperous one resulting in six sons and one daughter.  Herman must have prospered professionally, as well, because in April of 1894, just before the birth of his sixth child, he purchased 52 acres of land that included a new house, stable, and furniture from his brother-in-law, John Geisen, for a total of $1,895.  Based on my interpretation of complicated inflation variables, that works out to around $300,000 in today’s money.  Both the 1900 and 1910 U.S. Federal census show that Herman paid a mortgage on his house, but as is true today, I’m sure he needed a sizable down payment in order to be approved for the mortgage in the first place.

Herman died in February of 1917 from pneumonia caused by the grippe (flu). His will stated that his house was to be sold and his wife was to keep the furniture and chickens along with $200 ($7,000 today) beyond her share of the property.  His youngest son, Ben, was bequeathed “the best cow” and he, along with the rest of Herman’s heirs, received profits from the sale of the property. Herman’s obituary lauded him as “one of the best known German citizens and farmers in this county” who “engaged in farming and trucking in both of which he met with great success by his thrift and attention to farm duties.”

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Week 16: “Live Long”

Mary Juanita Chitwood (1605 - 1700)

The advent of the Internet has definitely changed the way people do their genealogy research.  Prior to the World Wide Web connecting servers of information around the world, research was done by visiting churches and archives, viewing hard copies of documents, scouring newspapers on microfiche, and relying on the work of other researchers before you (if they’d published their findings!).  Now there are billions of records digitized and available to browse from the comfort of your couch (usually for a fee).  However, this increased access means that there are a lot more “casual” genealogists out there, building family trees with unintentional misinformation and enthusiastic conjecture.

I bring this up because I was once an eager Internet genealogist with a misunderstanding of the information I had access to.  It took a little bit before I realized that I was adding information to my tree from unknown people with unknown sources.  And I am still working on “cleaning up” my tree to ensure that all information is properly documented and cited.

With that caveat, I bring you the subject of this post; Mary Chitwood, my 11th Great Grandmother and longest living direct ancestor.  Supposedly, Mary Chitwood was born in 1605 in Staffordshire, England, married John Earp in 1628, gave birth to her son, Thomas Marion Earp Sr., in Northern Ireland in 1631 and died in Ireland in 1700 at the age of 95.  However, I am extremely skeptical as I only have one index record (and no original documentation) to back up all of that information.  So you can take it with a grain of salt.  Her grandson, by the way, is Thomas Earp Jr., the first Earp in America.

My other long-living ancestors and their ages at death (some more certain than others) appear below:

Scholastica Rosa Kirchner - 93

John Adam Heil - 91

Patience Priscilla Brandenburg - 90

Edward Henry Plumer - 88

George Brandenburg - 88

Rebecca Wheeler - 87

Joseph August Geisen - 84

Erasmus Earp - 83

Eva Theresa Heil - 83

William Henry Gordon - 83

Jacob Samuel Brandenberger - 82

Clara Rothert - 82

William Henry Plummer - 81

My family tree with blog subjects highlighted

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Week 15: “How Do You Spell That?”

In the photo above, I have captured two times that my last name has been spelled incorrectly (hint: it starts with a W, not a B).  And those were minor errors compared to some of the Starbucks misspellings I’ve seen.  There are many reasons that a person’s name gets misspelled, and my ancestors weren’t immune to it.  So here are four of the most frustrating spelling issues I’ve encountered in my research.

Anna Maria Feldhaus (August 3, 1819 - June 24, 1900)

At a time when most people were poorly educated or completely illiterate, Anna probably didn’t worry too much about how to spell her last name.  In his marriage record, Anna’s father Johann Bernard is listed with the surname Feltes.  Anna’s baptismal entry spells her name Feldhues while the register for her own marriage records Anna's name as Feldhouse. Only the passenger list from her arrival to Baltimore lists her name with the spelling Feldhaus (the version I have arbitrarily chosen to prefer).  In Anna’s case, spelling variations reflect an emphasis on spoken pronunciation over written accuracy.  When other people needed to record her name, they probably used phonetics to help them capture it as precisely as possible without much concern for “correctness."  For the most part, Anna’s perpetually “misspelled" name has not impeded my genealogy research because the soundex code for her surname is always F-432.

John Earp (1680 - 1744)

In the case of the Earp family surname, phonetic spelling “mistakes" have actually made the research a little more difficult.  Earp historians note that the name had many different spelling variations over time.  Because John Earp’s father was a recent immigrant from Ireland, he probably spoke with a heavy accent.  If someone spelled the name phonetically based on John’s own accented pronunciation, it most likely would have been recorded as Harp or Arp (listen for yourself!).  In fact, in the 1701 Maryland Early Census, John’s last name was indeed recorded as Harp.  On both his birth record and his gravestone, however, he is identified as John Earp.  Other spellings found throughout the history of the Earp family tree include Erp, Urp, Erpe, Yrp, Earpe, Aerp, Arpe, Harpe, Yarp, and Erps.  All of which translate into many different soundex codes and complicate the process of finding records.

Brandenburg

I truly think that the biggest challenge when it comes to my Brandenburg ancestors is the length of their Germanic surname.  Most records I have studied spell out the entire surname, although occasionally I have seen a shortened Brand. or Brand'berg.  In general, I assume that the longer the name, the more likely it is misspelled.  Many records add an “h”, “er”, “e” or even “s” to my Brandenburg ancestors’ surname resulting in Brandenburge, Brandensburg, Brandenberger, and Brandenburgh to name a few.  It appears that they all generally come from the same origin and simply represent different (mostly unintentional) variations.  Once again, it helps that all the variations have the same soundex code (B-653).

Clara Rothert (January 4, 1834 - February 1, 1916)

Clara’s surname and all of its variations represent the mixed influence of phonetics, accents, mistakes, and anglicization.  The first record I have with Clara’s name is the passenger list showing her arrival at the port of Baltimore in October of 1848 with her father, Frederick Rothert, mother, and two brothers.  On the 1860 census, Clara is married to Edward Plümer and they are living and working on the farm of Frederick Road, her father.  When Clara’s eldest son, Frederick dies, his death certificate lists his mother’s maiden name as Rhode, and by the time I inherit my family’s family tree information, it has been changed to Roday.  I still don’t know which variation is the “right” one, but I’m partial to the name written on her immigration passenger list.

What misspellings do you have in your family tree?

Resources: 

Learn more about the Soundex Coding system for genealogy

My family tree with blog subjects highlighted