Karen Bennett

Greetings from the Chattanooga, Ohio, area. Yes, Ohio has its very own Chattanooga, aka Chatt, a small village in west-central Ohio, near the Indiana border. I have been doing family history research for over 20 years and am a Board-Certified genealogist, certified by the Board for Certification of Genealogists®. My main genealogical interests are family research, cemetery research, and historical and genealogical research of the Chatt area, with a focus on two area Lutheran Churches, both named Zion Lutheran, one in Chatt and the other in Schumm, Ohio. Family names I am researching include Miller, Schumm, Brewster, Rueck, Reid, Headington, Huey, Bryan, Whiteman, Schinnerer, Scaer, Breuninger, Bennett, and a few others. I belong to several lineage societies, including the Daughters of the American Revolution, U.S. Daughters of 1812, First Families of Ohio, and First Families of Mercer and Van Wert Counties. I am also a retired dental hygienist and our church organist. I hope you enjoy Karen's Chatt.

Most commented posts

  1. Golden Wedding Anniversary — 37 comments
  2. Haunted Mercer County? — 34 comments
  3. The Old Willshire Hotel — 30 comments
  4. Metal Cemetery Monuments — 25 comments
  5. The Milligan Painting — 24 comments

Author's posts

Oct 04

The Daughters of Jacob Miller

Last week I posted photos of the sons of my great-grandfather Jacob Miller. Today, some photos of Jacob Miller’s daughters.

Jacob Miller (1843-1918) was born in Bierbach, Bavaria. He married Sophia Goelzer there, but Sophia and their first child died during childbirth.

Oct 01

Tombstone Tuesday–Anna K. (Meisinger) Sauer

This is the tombstone of Anna K. (Meisinger) Sauer, located in row 9 of Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Schumm, Van Wert County, Ohio. The marker is inscribed:

Anna K.
Wife of
John Sauer
July 23, 1855
July 12, 1935
Ps. 119, v. 111

Sep 27

The Sons of Jacob Miller

The past few weeks I have been writing about two of Jacob Miller’s sons, Christian “Chris” Miller and Jacob Miller Jr, writing about the time they spent working in the oil fields of California, Oklahoma, and Texas around 1910. The Miller family saved their postcards from their time out west and those picture postcards gave me enough information to create a timeline of their brief time spent there. They both died young out west. Chris of typhoid in Texas and Jacob Jr in Oklahoma, killed when parts of an oil derrick fell on him.

Sep 24

Tombstone Tuesday–Johannes Sauer

This is the tombstone of Johannes Sauer, located in row 7 of Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Schumm, Van Wert County, Ohio. The marker is inscribed:

Sep 20

Timeline-Miller Brothers in Western Oil Fields, c1909-13

The past several weeks I have posted the images of picture postcards from the early 1900 oil fields in the western United States. Postcards that half-brothers Chris Miller and Jacob Miller Jr acquired while the two young men worked there in the oil fields.