52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 10 "Translation"

One of the things that frustrates me the most in working with my ancestors is trying to determine the spelling of names of some of my German immigrant ancestors. There are so many variations that appear in the sources that I find it hard to decide which one to use as the primary and how many of the variations to document.

Take my second-great-grandfather Fitzler (my papamapa). Here are all the variations of his given name in the records here in the US.

• Weimar: the Henry, IL newspaper report of his death and the coroners report
• Weimer: death certificate for his daughter (my papama)
• Wimar: 1854 marriage register entry, 1865 excise tax list
• Wimer: 1868 voter list, 1872 voter list, 1880 voter list, 1880 non-population US Census, wife's obit, 
• Wymer: 1865 IL Census, 1870 US Census, 1870 non-population US Census, 1876 voter list, 1880 US Census

There are probably many more records that could be located (land, children's marriage and death records, etc.) and maybe some of them would have even more variations. 

As far as German records go, I have not been able to locate any. So far. All I have to go on are two descendant lists (one for his father and one for his great-grandfather) that I received several years ago from an unknown researcher in Germany. In those documents his given name is Johann Wimar. That's the name I've decided to go with. But what to do with the five other variations that all leave off Johann? Which is his preferred one? Did he even have a preference?

Or let's look at the ancestors of my second-great-grandmother Julia Ann of Sheboygan Co., WI and Charles Mix Co., SD. Here is a list of all the variations of her maiden name that I have found in Wisconsin, New York, and Württemberg, Germany.

• Addlebush
• Adlebush
• Edelbusch
• Eitelbusch
• Eitelbuss
• Idelbusch
• Idelbush
• Idlebush

Again, I'm sure that when I find more records in the US, I'll find more variations. The Württemberg baptism records that I've found use Eitelbuss. That's the Last Name at Birth (LNAB) that I use for Julia Ann's father and grandfather. For her and her siblings born in the US, I use Adlebush because that's the one that's most common. It's also the name carved in stone on their father's grave marker in Sheboygan CO., WI. But what to do with all the other variations?

John Jacob Adlebush (1817-1901)

Then there are the German immigrants who sometimes anglicized their surnames. We have my  Toemmes to Thomas line (and even more variations in the book "Zwischen Saar Und Leuk" Familienbuch 1675-1900 : Der Pfarreien Freudenburg -- Weiten -- Trassem -- Kastel Sowie Der Orte Hamm) and the Schmitt to Smith line.

Tombstone Tuesday: First of the Great-Greats

I've posted photos of the grave markers for all my grandparents and great-grandparents. So it's on to the great-great-grandparents.

I've previously posted about my great-great-grandfather Evert Huigens's broken tombstone. His wife, my great-great-grandmother Katherine (Toemmes) Huigens Wend remarried after his death. She and her second husband, Nicholas Wend, are buried in St. Patrick Cemetery in Henry, Marshall Co., IL.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy: Week 9 - Cemeteries

Week 9 – Cemeteries: Genealogists understand the full value of cemeteries and appreciate them in ways most others can’t see. Share a cemetery or cemetery experience for which you are most thankful. What makes this place special? What does it mean to you and your family history?

Right after I posted my week 10 entry for this series, I realized that I never got around to doing one for Week 9. D'oh!

The cemetery that means the most to me is one that is located in the middle of a cornfield near Henry, Marshall Co., IL. This is where my great-great-grandfather Evert Huigens is buried as well as his mother-in-law, my 3 x great-grandmother Maria (Schmitt) Toemmes. I wrote about my great-great-grandfather's broken tombstone in this post. The tombstone was knocked down and broken by vandals in 1925, according to a Henry newspaper article I have a copy of. 

Here is a satellite view of the cemetery. You can see how it sits in the middle of a corn field just of of IL highway 29. I worry about the long-term future of this resting place for my ancestors.

 

SNGF: Two Degrees of Separation

1) Using your ancestral lines, how far back in time can you go with two degrees of separation? That means "you knew an ancestor, who knew another ancestor." When was that second ancestor born?

All of my great-grandparents had died before I was born. So the middle person will have to be one of my grandparents. Here are the earliest born ancestors that each of my grandparents may have known.

Joseph Andrew Huigens (1891-1957) had to have known his grandmother, Anna Helena (Schmitt) Fitzler (1833-1904). They both lived near Creighton, NE according to the 1900 US Census. He would have been 13 when she died. It's possible he also met his other grandmother, Katherine (Toemmes) Huigens Wend (1827-1899). She died in 1899, when he was eight. In 1895 she was living in Iowa with her daughter's family. She died four years later in a mental hospital in Illinois.

Mary Julia (Kain) Huigens (1894-1979) only had one grandparent who did not die before she was born, her maternal grandfather, John Kennedy (1826-1913). She would have been 19 when he died. I have no idea if she ever made the trip to Clinton, IA to meet him, if he ever came out west to Nebraska or if they met somewhere in the middle in Iowa for a family gathering at her aunt's.

Emery Julius Huigens (1896-1984) probably knew all of his grandparents. He was 14 when the first of them died. They all lived near each other in south-eastern South Dakota. His paternal grandfather, James Robert Ogden (1836-1910), was the oldest and the first to die. Emery would have been 14 then. It's also possible but unlikely that he met his great-grandfather, John Jacob Adlebusch (1817-1901). He lived in Sheboygan Co., WI and was almost 80 when my grandfather was born. I doubt that my grandfather was taken to Wisconsin or that my great-great-great-grandfather made the trip to SD at his age.

Esther Louise (Johnson) Ogden (1902-1984) probably knew all three of her grandparents who were alive when she was born. The oldest of them was Harriet Alice (Howard) Strayer (1829-1914). They all lived in the Quad City area in Iowa and Illinois where my grandmother was born.

So I'm pretty sure the farthest back I can go is Esther Louise Johnson to her maternal grandmother, Harriet Alice Howard, born in 1829. There are two other definite possibilities in 1826 and 1827 with a very, very slim chance of 1817.

Thanks, Randy, for another great topic.

Surname Saturday - 17: Toemmes

This is the first surname posting on my eight great-great-grandmothers' maiden names.  "Toemmes" is sometimes anglicized to "Thomas".

1. Kevin Joseph HUIGENS

2. Joseph Anthony HUIGENS
3. Shirley Ann OGDEN

4. Joseph Andrew HUIGENS (b. 9 Mar 1891 near Creighton, Knox Co., NE, m. 18 Feb 1914 at St. Ludgers Catholic Church in Creighton, Knox Co., NE, d. 8 Nov 1957 in Rushville, Sheridan Co., NE)
5. Mary Julia KAIN (b. 19 May 1896 in Knox Co., NE, d. 29 Apr 1979 in Rushville, Sheridan Co., NE)

8. John Edward HUIGENS (b. 15 Jun 1862 near Henry, Marshall Co., m. 28 Jan 1884 at St. Mary's Catholic Church, Henry, Marshall Co., IL, d. 12 Apr 1949 in Creighton, Knox Co., NE)
9. Mary FITZLER (b. 22 Feb 1866 in Marshall Co., IL, d. 6 Feb 1949 in Creighton, Knox Co., NE)

16. Evert HUIGEN (b. 6 Dec 1827 in Holland, Netherlands, m. ? in ?, d. 27 Feb 1864 in Marshall Co., IL)
17. Catherine TOEMMES (b. 6 Jan 1827 in Trassem, Kreis Saarburg, Prussia, d. 22 Feb 1899 in Morgan Co., IL)

34. Johann TOEMMES (b. 1790 in Trassem, Kreis Saarburg, Prussia, m. 1815 at St. Hubertus Catholic Church in Trassem, Kreis Saarburg, Prussia, d. ? in ?)
35. Maria SCHMITT (b. 29 Sept 1796 in Trassem, Kreis Saarburg, Prussia, d. 4 Nov 1869 in Marshall Co., IL)

What I know about the genealogy of this line comes from this website, an alphabetical listing of births and marriages extracted from the book Zwischen Saar und Leuk 1675-1900 [Between Saar and Leuk]. This book is a compilation of area church records.

The Toemmes family immigrated from Trier area of the Rheinland in 1853.  I posted about their arrival in New York here.

Other members of the TOEMMES family who settled in central Illinois are Matthias, Peter, Anna, Maria and Anna Maria, also known as Emma.

Fearless Females: Day 11

Today's prompt for the Fearless Female Women's History blog challenge is:

March 11 — Did you have any female ancestors who died young or from tragic or unexpected circumstances? Describe and how did this affect the family?

Nearly all of my female ancestors have lived into their 80's--early deaths are rare. I do have one whose place of death was a surprise, though. According to the on-line Illinois Statewide Death Index, Pre–1916, here is the entry for Katherine (TOEMMES) HUIGENS WEND:

Name of Deceased: WEND, CATHERINE
Date: 1899-02-22
City: HOSPITAL FOR INSANE
Age: 72 YR
Sex: F
Vol.: 2
Page: 228
Certificate No.: 6215
County: MORGAN

The Illinois Hospital for the Insane was not where I expected to find her in 1899. In 1895, she and her husband Nicholas WEND were living in Franklin Twp., Cass Co., Iowa with their daughter's family. Four years later she died in the Illinois State Hospital for the Insane back in Jacksonville, Morgan Co., IL. Check here for background and history on this hospital.

I have no idea how she got there from Iowa. She had another daughter who lived in Peoria, IL about 100 miles northeast of the hospital. Why she was there is another mystery. My guess is that is was probably senility or Alzheimer's. The records for the hospital are in the Illinois State Archives in Springfield. Access to them is limited, but I'm going to have to see sometime what I can learn from them.

Arrived

One of the many benefits of reading genealogy blogs is that I often get ideas for new sources of potential family history nuggets. For instance, a few weeks ago, on "Ask Olive Tree Genealogy a Question," I read the following:

It's fun to look for these ships in the New York Times newspaper Archives. You can find out when the ship arrived in port and sometimes other details especially if they encountered bad weather en route.

What a great idea! Since the archive only goes back to 1851, I started by looking for the earliest arrival I know from after that date. On ancestry.com, I had previously found a passenger list that showed my great-great grandmother, Catherine TOEMMES, arriving in New York from Le Havre on the ship Finland on Saturday, 23-Apr-1853.

From the image, I also learned that Catherine had immigrated with several other Toemmeses. These turned out to be her brother, Matthias, her mother, Maria, and her sisters, Anna, Maria and Anna Maria (AKA Emma).

Knowing the date of the Finland's arrival made it very easy to locate the following in the NYT archives. From the Monday, 25-April-1853 edition:

"In ballast" means that the ship carried no cargo, just the passengers and crew, their baggage, and enough extra weight to keep the ship from "heeling" or tipping over. "To master" means that there was no hired agent and the ship's captain (the master) was acting as the agent. "Johnson" was the ship's captain, Henry Johnson, as shown in the information from the first page of the passeger list.

Since the ship arrived on 23-Apr-1853 after 49 days at sea, it must have left Le Havre on Saturday, 5-Mar-1853. Just another interesting little tidbit of family history.