As I worked on my Koechle/Kaechle chapter for the Holthoefer family book, I was shocked to come across a piece of conflicting evidence which threatened to chop off a branch of my tree. For years I’d worked with the thought that Reinhard Koechle’s father was Thaddeus Koechle. But, upon discovering Reinhard’s death certificate at Seeking Michigan, I saw his father’s name listed as Mathias. For about 24 hours, I was desperately trying to determine who really was the father of Reinhard Koechle. Detail of Reinhard Kaechle’s death certificate (from Seeking Michigan site) showing father’s name as Mathias Reinhard’s death certificate...
LESSON LEARNED: Changing the spelling makes a difference! For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on the family of Thaddeus Koechle who immigrated from Germany to America in the summer of 1851 with his wife and 5 children. But, there was something odd about the oldest child, Maria or Mary. She appeared to have been born about 2 years before Thaddeus and his wife, Katharina Kern, were married. Thada Koechle, passenger #281, 05 July 1851, Ship Monmouth, Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010 (Maria, age 17, is 3rd on this...
Thaddeus Kaechle, my 3rd great grandfather, arrived at Castle Garden in New York aboard the ship Monmouth in the summer of 1851 with his wife, Katherine, and five or six children. (Only five are listed on the passenger list, but there should be six.) They were in Huron County, Ohio when, two years later, his wife gave birth to their 7th and later 8th children, both daughters. Thada Koechle, passenger #281, 05 July 1851, Ship Monmouth, Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010 A big breakthrough on this family was the German marriage records on...
Today I’m continuing to work on a major genealogy organization project starting with just one surname. When I visited family in Kansas last month, I printed out Family Group Sheets from my RootsMagic program. But, I really didn’t like the format. So, today I’ve been filling one out the old fashioned way – by hand. I started by filling out the details for my 3x great grandfather, Johann Charles/Carl Guenther Werther: BORN: 17 May 1819 n in Berka, Sonderhausen, Prussia (Germany) RELIGION: Protestant MARRIED: about 1845, probably in Berka DIED: 19 Apr 1899 CAUSE OF DEATH: dropsy (from obituary) BURIED:...
I found the following newspaper advertisement twenty-two times in the Arkansas City Daily Traveler. I guess Eckert (Eckard) Peters (1845- 1915) was sold on this miracle drug! Eckert was a brother of my great, great grandfather, Charles Peters (1847 in Germany – 1910 in Comanche County, Oklahoma). In 1894 they both lived in Sumner County, Kansas which was near the county line of Cowley County, Kansas where Arkansas City (“Ark City”) is located. Lagrippe Remedy, Arkansas City Daily Traveler, Arkansas City, Kansas, 08 Nov 1894, page 3, column 2; digital image newspapers.com, (http://www.newspapers.com: accessed 20 Sep 2014) Two years ago...
I’ve done a few of Randy Seaver’s “Saturday Night Genealogy Fun” challenges over at Genea-Musings. This week’s challenge is about your father’s mother’s paternal lines. 1) What was your father’s mother’s name? My grandmother’s maiden name was Hazel Lucille Peters. At the end of her life, she lived with my aunt & uncle who lived in the same town as I. She had almost white hair and, as a young child, I thought that was just her hair color. So, when I received a doll with white hair, I named her Hazel. She died when I was only 5 and...
Lately, I’ve been having a lot of success in researching my Karbach/Koerbach family. They came from Germany around 1850 or 1853 and settled in Norwalk, Huron County, Ohio. One of the wonderful resources I have discovered is the Rutherford B Hayes Presidential Center which has an index of obituaries in several area newspapers. I’ve now ordered about 15 obituaries for only $3 each. One of the obituaries I ordered was for my great, great, great grandmother, Mary Ann (Reuter) Koerbach. I received the ‘obituary’ with this wonderful title: “Aged Woman Answers Summons.” In it, I found two clues: one saying...
Last night I had a wonderful find: I found a family tree that a distant cousin had posted on My Heritage. On that tree was posted a marriage certificate for my third great grandparents in Germany! This gave me the actual village my ancestors were from! Also, he had posted PHOTOS of this couple with one of their children! I have asked permission to post these photos and hope to be able to do that soon! In the meantime, I’ve been working on the marriage record. It is written in Latin and I used about five different websites to help...
This is the oldest genealogical record I’ve found for my family, and I just found it earlier this week! In the past few weeks, I’ve tracked down the actual village my mother’s German (Kaechle) ancestors came from. It’s called Grissheim and it’s located in Baden-Wurttemberg, though it was just “Baden” when they lived there. I ordered four microfilms from FHL and was able to spend some time looking at them earlier this week. These church records were amazing! The record above is my ancestor’s baptism record from 1616!!! That’s incredible! Here’s a close up showing my direct ancestor’s record. It...
