52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 16 "Should Be a Movie"

I think that a good screenplay could be developed around the life of my 2xgreat-grandmoteher Anna Helena (Schmitt) Fitzler.

In May of 1858, at the age of 24, she set sail from Antwerp, Belgium on the ship "Charles Cooper." Sailing with her were her future sister-in-law Anna Christina Fitzler and Anna Christina's 5-year-old son Wimar. They landed in New York City on 25 June 1858.

The Charles Cooper

Two weeks later at St. Patrick Catholic Church in LaSalle, Illinois, Anna Helena married Johann Wimar "Wymer" Fitzler in a joint ceremony with Anna Christina Fitzler and Johann Schloesser, most likely the father of Wimar, who became Wimar Schloesser. 

St. Patrick Catholic Church, LaSalle, IL

Anna Helena and her husband settled in Marshall County, Illinois, near the town of Henry, where her two brothers, Peter and Michael were already living. 

Wymer bought a farm in Hopewell Township. Over the years he was forced to take out several mortgages on it. His lack of success may have been a result of alcoholism The progression of the disease and its effects on those around the alcoholic always make for good drama in a film.

On 13 October 1885, Wymer fell to his death from the bridge over the Illinois River outside of Henry. He was returning home after a couple of days in Henry, where he spent at least the last day drinking. 

The climax of the film would be when the authorities come to her door to tell her about her husband's death Anyone who has ever cared about an alcoholic has imagined what that would feel like. I wonder what she felt? Grief. Anger. Relief. Shame. Guilt.  

There was probably an element of guilt since she quickly moved her family to Knox County, Nebraska where she had two married daughters living. She died there many years later in 1904. According to one of her obituaries, she was "known universally as Grandma Fitzler" and had a "kindly nature."

Her life may have been a rocky road, but I think she had a smooth ending. At least I hope she did.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 9 "Gone Too Soon"

 First off, am I the only one who did not know that there is a song called "Gone Too Soon" by an artist called Week Nine? Am I the only one who has never even heard of Week Nine? The things you learn using Google.

Anyway, "Gone Too Soon" in terms of my ancestors makes me think of my Dutch immigrant 2nd great-grandfather Everard "Evert" Huigen. He died 27 February 1864 at the age of 36. He left behind a young wife and six children, I only have info on four of the children. They are (with their age when their father died): Julia, age7; Bernard, age 5; Maria, age 3; John, age 1. John is my great-grandfather. The evidence for six children comes from his wife Catherine's obituary in 1899. It states they had six children, three of whom were living when she died. Maria and the two for whom I have no other evidence died before the 1870 US Census. Julia and Bernard are the only two listed in the 1860 US Census. 

I wrote about finally finding Evert in Wie Was Wie here. I wrote about his broken headstone here. I don't have any information about his death except the date that is on his headstone. I don't even have any direct evidence that he died in Marshall County. He was living there in the 1860 US Census and that is where his grave is. There were no death vital records in Marshall County, Illinois in 1864. The county courthouse has no probate records for him. The newspaper archives at the Henry Public Library do not cover 1864. He died during the Civil War but there is no record of his having participated, let alone having died in the war. He had two brothers who were living in Clinton County, Illinois. Perhaps there is some mention of  their brother's death in a local newspaper there. That is a topic for further research. For now the circumstances of Evert's death remain a memory.

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.

Mystery Monday: Death of Joseph Wend

My great-grandfather's half-brother, Joseph Wend, (2nd from the left in the back row) was born in Illinois in Sept 1871. My great-grandfather, John Huigens (farthest on the right in the back row), named his son, my grandfather Joseph Huigens, after his half-brother. My grandfather named my father Joseph. My middle name is Joseph. One of my son's middle name is Joseph. And it all started with Joseph Wend. How he ended is the mystery.

I think I found him in Hennepin Co., Minnesota in the 1910, 1920 and 1930 US Census records. He is single in all those records. I have not been able to find a death date for him. I've looked in the MN Historical Society's on-line index, Family Search and Ancestry.com. I have found an index record for a Joseph Lester Wind dying in Minnesota in Nov. 1950. It might be him. No time or place of birth. No mother's maiden name. As far as I know, no way to tell if it's him. If he was single, there was probably no informant to provide that information. All of his brothers and sisters had died by 1950.

The only thing to do is to order the record and see  if there is any additional info. But that will have to wait because I have other records I want to spend my limited genealogy budget on.  Other options are to find a baptism record down in Marshall Co. to see if the middle name matches or look for an obituary, which would probably have little info that was not on the death certificate.

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.

 

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy: Weeks 2 & 3: Online Tools

It's two, two, two weeks in one!

Week 2: Paid Genealogy Tools
My favorite paid genealogy tool? Ancestry.com hands down. It has been the source of tons of research and discoveries, mostly through the census records. It has also been where we have built our family tree.

By we, I mean my brother Ross and me. In fact, it's his subscription that he generously shares with me. That is what I am most grateful for. He did a tremendous job getting our tree started. I just add twigs and leaves to the trunk and branches he first built.

Week 3: Free Online Genealogy Tools
This one is a lot tougher. I am grateful for familysearch.org and also for the USGenWeb collection of sites. I guess I'll go with the USGenWeb sites because I'm grateful for the hundreds of volunteers that built these sites and keep them running. I'll especially mention Marshall County, IL, Knox County, NE and Clinton County, IA. These were a great help in working on my paternal family lines. My dad's Irish ancestors settled in Clinton Co., the German ones in Marshall Co. Both sets of his grandparents settled in Knox Co., where his parents met.

May 2011, Week 2: Marriage of John Huigens

My great-grandparents John HUIGENS and Mary FITZLER were married in Henry, Marshall Co., IL at St. Mary's Catholic Church. The priest was Father Carl Hout.  The only thing I'm not sure about is the exact date of the marriage. Back in the 1990s my mother got an abstracted Certificate of Record of Marriage from the Marshall County Clerk. That document gave the date of the wedding as 29 Jan 1884.

In 2006, I obtained a similar certificate from the same place. As you can see, the date listed on that one was 24 Jan 1884. To further complicate the issue, I found a marriage announcement in the microfilmed Henry newspaper from Feb 1884. The wedding date listed in that article was 1 Feb 1884.

So which date is correct?  I think that the 24/29 is a transcription error where a 4 was mistaken for a 9 or vice versa. I also thank that date is the date on which they obtained the license and not the actual date of the ceremony. The three dates fall on a Thursday, a Tuesday and a Saturday.  (Gotta love those on-line calendars for any month and year!)  I think it's more likely that the wedding was on Saturday, 2 Feb 1884.  Seeing the actual marriage license at the county courthouse will resolve the conflict. I was hoping to to find the license on the microfilmed Marshall Co. records at the Illinois Records and Archives Depository in Normal, IL. Unfortunately 1884 was one of the years that was not filmed.  Drat!

I was able to tie Fr. Hout to the specific church thanks to on-line transcripts of newspaper announcements for other Henry marriages in the 1880s here. St. Mary's was the German Catholic Church in Henry. Like many towns across the mid-west in the 1800s, Henry had two Catholic churches, one for the Irish and one for the Germans. That way both of the two main immigrant groups of the period could have homilies and hymns in their native language.

One of John and Mary's wedding gifts was a clock that my dad now owns.  This summer I'll get a picture of it.  It's wonderful to have something that ties back to an event from over 125 years ago.

May 2011, week 1: Birth of John HUIGENS

This month I'm starting on documenting the lives of my great-grandparents. The first is my father's paternal grandfather.

John HUIGENS was born on 15 Jun 1862 near Henry, Marshall Co., IL. His parents were Evert/Edward and Catherine (Toemmes) HEUIGEN. The two main sources of information on him are from biographies in "Compendium of history, reminiscence, and biography of Nebraska," (1) which is availabe on-line here, and "100 years of progress, Creighton, Nebraska, 1874-1974. (2) I also have his NE death certificate which provides the same information on his parents, date and place of birth as the bios do. His eldest son, Bernard, provided the info for his death certificate. I don't know who provided the info for the 1974 bio.

If the parents followed the standard German and Dutch naming patterns, John, as the second male child, was named after his mother's father, Johann TOEMMES.  John most likely never met his grandfather.  His grandmother brought her children to America in 1853, all by herself.

John's father died in 1864, when he was 2 years old.  His mother married Nicholas WEND sometime before 1869, when their first child was born.

John's parents' farm was in the north half of the northeast quarter of Section 10 of Hopewell Twp. in Marshall Co., IL, east of Henry. That's where he was born, if he was born at home, which seems very probable. Here is an 1890 plat map when the farm was owned by John's brother-in-law, Joseph ROTH. I have also seen an 1873 plat map that shows the same piece of land owned by John's step-father, who would have assumed ownership of the farm when he married John's mother.

My great-grandfather John was born during the US Civil War and lived to the age of 86, when he died in 1949. He lived through the US Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II.  Several of his grandchildren served in WWII. His life covered quite a span of US history.

Further lines of research are to look for a baptism record from St. Mary's Catholic Church in Henry and to find an obituary to see if  that has any inconsistent information.  I checked the newspaper archives at the Henry Library in Sept. 2006 hoping to find a birth announcement, but their microfilmed copies of the local newspaper do not go as far back as 1862.

1. Alden Publishing Co. 1912. Compendium of history, reminiscence, and biography of Nebraska: containing a history of the state of Nebraska ... also a compendium of reminiscence and biography containing biographical sketches of hundreds of prominent old settlers and representative citizens of Nebraska. John Huigens entry, 497, Chicago: Alden pub. co.

 

2. 100 years of progress, Creighton, Nebraska, 1874-1974. 1974. [Creighton, Neb.?]: Centennial Book Committee.