Apr 22

I’m My Own Grandpa

Unknown tintype; a Schinnerer?

“I’m My Own Grandpa” is the title of an old song that my parents used to have on a 78 Rpm record. The song was written by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe back in the 1940s.  It was from the same era as another silly song, “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?” They don’t write songs like that anymore and they don’t make 78 Rpm records anymore either. Ray Stevens rerecorded the grandpa song a few years back and some of you may be familiar with it.

“I’m My Own Grandpa” tells the tale of tangled relationships in a family and how a man ended up being related to himself. It seems this fellow married a woman that had a grown daughter from a previous marriage. That fellow’s father married the daughter, making his father his son-in-law. Sort of. I guess to be genealogically accurate they should have used the term “step” throughout the song, as in step-daughter. But that would have thrown off the meter of the song.

My Tombstone Tuesday blog, featuring Barbara Anna Schumm Buechner, nee Pflueger, brought this song to mind, although our family genealogy is not quite as intriguing as the one in the song. In my family no one ended up being their own grandpa, but there are a couple minor twists and turns.

I knew that my Grandpa and Grandma Schumm were related by blood before they married. Louis and Barbara Schumm, nee Pflueger, were the common ancestors of both Grandpa and Grandma. Grandpa descended from their son Louis and Grandma descended from their daughter Elizabeth, who married Friedrich Schinnerer.

People did not go very far to find a mate in the 19th century. They often married someone within three miles of where they lived. The Schumms and Scaers lived just down the road from each other.

My grandparents were first cousins once removed. Another way to look at it would be to marry the son or daughter of your first cousin. Isaac and Rebeckah, of Biblical fame, were also first cousins once removed. Several notable people married their first cousin, including Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, and Queen Victoria. First cousin marriages are fairly common throughout the world, making up about 10% of all marriages. But remember, my grandparents were first cousins once removed. There is an extra little buffer in there. Theoretically, that would be half as risky as marrying your first cousin, if you are concerned about passing on a genetic disease.

I was surprised a few years ago when one of my relatives, Milton Schumm and his wife Betty, came to the funeral home after the death of Joe’s grandmother, Goldie Helen Roesner, nee Lee. As we talked with them we learned that not only had they been acquaintances of the Roesners, but one of them was related to Joe! Immediately I wondered if Joe and I were somehow related. As soon as I got home I delved into my genealogy information to see just what their relationship was to us.

I discovered that Milton Schumm was my 2nd cousin once and twice removed. I’m related to Milton twice because of that Louis and Barbara Schumm thing again. Louis and Barbara are the common ancestors of Milton and me.

It turns out that Joe is related to Milton’s wife, Betty, nee Ross. Joe and Betty are 1st cousins once removed. Their common ancestors are Dietrich and Christine Roesner, nee Schoor. Dietrich and Christine Roesner had 8 children. Among them were Edward Roesner, Joe’s grandfather and husband of Goldie Helen Lee, and Elizabeth Louise Roesner, who married Leo Ross. Louise and Leo had 4 children and one of them was Betty Ross, who married Milton Schumm. It turns out that Betty is the niece of Edward and Helen Roesner.

Joe and I are not related by blood. As for our son Jeff, he is of course related to both Milton and Betty. He is a 2nd cousin twice and three times removed to Milton and a 1st cousin twice removed to Betty. I could go on and give Jeff’s relationship to Milton and Betty’s children, but this first, second cousin, once, twice removed  thing is making my head hurt. Thanks to Roots Magic and its Relationship Calculator, which makes figuring out these family relationships very easy.

Apr 19

Tombstone Tuesday–Barbara Anna (Pflueger) Schumm Buechner

Barbara Anna Schumm Buechner, nee Pflueger (1822-1908), Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Schumm, Ohio

This is the tombstone of Barbara Anna Buechner, nee Pflueger, located in row 4 of Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Schumm, Van Wert County, Ohio.The marker is inscribed:

Barbara A.
28 Dec. 1822
13 Nov. 1908
Alter
85 J, 10 M, 15 T
BUECHNER

Barbara Anna was the seventh of twelve children born to Johann Christian and Anna Barbara (Seckel) Pflueger, born 28 December 1822 in Schrozberg, Oberamt Gerebronn, Wuerttemberg. She immigrated with her family in about 1832 and they first settled Holmes County, Ohio.

Barbara married Johann Ludwig Schumm in Holmes County, Ohio, on 1 November 1840 by Daniel Cranz. (Vol. 2:109) I descend from their son Louis J. and his wife Sarah (Breuninger) and from their daughter Elizabeth, who married Friedrich Schinnerer. Barbara is my second and third great-grandmother.

Barbara’s first husband Ludwig Schumm died in 1855 and she then married John Adam Buechner on 17 September 1861 in Van Wert County, Ohio. (Vol. 2:274)

Obituary:
LADY PASSES AWAY–A RESIDENT OF THE TOWNSHIP 68 YEARS
In the death of Mrs. Anna Barbara Buechner, which occurred at Schumm Friday, a pioneer resident has been called to her last home. Mrs. Buechner having been a resident of this township for sixty-eight years. She had been failing in health for some time, due to the infirmities of old age.

Anna Barbara Buechner, nee Flager [sic], was born Dec. 28, 1822 in Schroedsberg (sic), Oberamt Gerebronn, Wuerttemberg, in Germany, coming to this country in 1831 when her parents located in Holmes County, Ohio, where she resided until the year of 1840, when she was united in marriage to Martin [sic] Ludwig Schumm, and moved to what is now the J.C. Schumm property at Schumm.

To this union nine children were born, they being Elizabeth, now Mrs. Frederick Schinnerer; Mary, who was united in marriage to Martin Schinnerer, but now deceased; Henry; Jacob, now deceased; Rosina, now the second wife of Martin Schinnerer, of Los Angeles, Calif.; J.C. and Louis J.; Hannah, now Mrs. C.F. Germann and George, deceased. In 1855 Mr. Schumm passed to the great beyond and Mrs. Schumm remained a widow until the year of 1861, when she was united in marriage to John Adam Buechner, to which union two children were born, they being Marguerite, now the wife of F.G. Kreiselmeyer of Ft. Wayne, and W.A. Buechner.  Mr. Buechner answered the last call March 11, 1885, since which time she has remained a widow.  All the children living were present at the funeral services with the exception of Mrs. Martin Schinnerer of Los Angeles, Calif. 

Mrs. Buechner leaves to mourn their loss, four sons, four daughters, three son-in-laws (sic), three daughter-in-laws (sic), two step-sons, one sister, Mrs. Jacob Bienz, fifty-five grandchildren and sixty-four great grand children. The funeral services were held at the Zion Lutheran Church at Schumm, Monday, November 16, conducted by the pastor, Rev. H. Holle, the interment being made in the church cemetery.  Four of the great-grandsons acted as pall-bearers, carrying the remains of Mrs. Buechner to her last resting place. (The Willshire Herald, 19 Nov 1908, p. 1)

Barbara and Ludwig Schumm had the following children:

Elizabeth (1841-1917) married Friedrich Schinnerer
Maria “Mary” (1842-1870) married Martin Schinnerer
Henry (1844-1922) married Anna Schinnerer; Anna Magdalena “Lena” Geisler
Johann Jacob (1846-1854)
“Rosina” Maria (1848-1909) married Martin Schinnerer
John C. (1849-1926)  married Wilhelmina “Minnie” Breuninger
George (1850-1852)
Ludwig John (1851-1938) married Sarah Breuninger
Hannah (1853-1926) married Charles Germann
George Friedrick (1855-1857)

Barbara and John Adam Buechner had the following children:

Marguerite  (1864-?) married F.G. Kreiselmeyer
William A. (1865-1955) Katherine Magdalena Schumm

 

Apr 15

Our Century Families of Ohio

Karen, Joe, Jeff, Sunda Peters, OGS President at 2011 Century Families Inductions

A couple of weeks ago we were in Columbus for the 50th Annual Ohio Genealogical Society Conference. Thursday evening Joe, Jeff and I attended the Century Families of Ohio banquet and afterward the three of us were inducted into the new lineage society. Century Families of Ohio (CFO) is the newest OGS lineage society and we are now charter members. You are eligible to join if you are an OGS member and can prove your direct descent from an ancestor that resided in Ohio between 1861 and 100 years ago, which was 1910 last year. Last year I submitted applications for all three of us and all of our ancestors were approved!

Ninety-three CFO applications were approved and the majority of those applicants were present at the induction ceremony. It was quite a crowd. Those 93 applicants proved 541 ancestors. Sixty-three ancestors were from Coshocton County, the most ancestors from one particular Ohio county. Twenty-five ancestors were from Mercer County and twenty-two were from Van Wert County. Margaret Cheney, CFO chair, presided at the induction ceremony.

I was actually able to claim more ancestors than I first thought I would have. Most of my grandparents are now in the CFO roster. Below is a list of our CFO ancestors. Following their name is the earliest date they were in Ohio, the county they were proved in and the information I used to prove they were in Ohio between 1861-1910:

Karen (8 ancestors proved):
Carl Friedrich Miller (1896/Mercer/birth)
Jacob Miller (1874/Mercer/naturalization)
Christina Rueck (1882/Van Wert/marriage to Jacob Miller)
Cornelius Ludwig Schumm (1896/Van Wert/birth)
Sarah Breuninger (1883/Van Wert/marriage to Louis Schumm)
Elizabeth Schinnerer (1870/Mercer/birth)
John Scaer (1864/Tuscarawas/birth)
Hilda Magdalena Scaer (1910/Van Wert/1910 census)

Joe (13 ancestors proved):
Vermont Henry Bennett (1886/Mercer/birth)
Lura V Monroe (1890/Mercer/birth)
Sarah Elizabeth Cain (1878/Mercer/marriage to James Francis Monroe)
David B Cain (1880/Mercer/1880 census)
Narcissa Manning (1880/Mercer/1880 census)
Edward Roesner (1893/Van Wert/birth)
Goldie Helen Lee (1905/Paulding/birth)
Dietrick Roesner (1880/Paulding/1880 census)
Christine Schoor (1862/Putnam/birth)
Hiram Lee (1890/Paulding/marriage to Arretha Green)
Arretha Green (1890/Paulding/marriage to Hiram Lee)
Stephen Lee (1900/Paulding/1900 census)
Phebe Howard (1900/Paulding/1900 census)

Jeff, 21 ancestors proved. He was of course credited with all of the above ancestors. Jeff had the most ancestors proved of all those inducted this year! I am CFO #16, Joe is #17, and Jeff is #18. We each received a nice medallion and a certificate.

I would have been able to prove Jacob and Regina (Gross) Rueck if I had found their Van Wert County land deed last year. They were in Van Wert in 1881.I plan to submit the necessary documents to prove them this year. If approved, they will be in next year’s roster.

If you notice, all the women are listed by their maiden name. A woman’s maiden name must be proved to be accepted into a lineage society. To prove Regina Rueck, nee Gross, I will use a copy of daughter Christina’s birth/baptism record from the Evangelical Church in Honhardt, Wuerttemberg. Translations are accepted for lineage applications, but the translation must be done by someone other than the applicant. Although I can read the record myself, I will have someone translate and transcribe the document for the application.

I am a member of all four OGS lineage societies: First Families of Ohio/FFO (ancestor resided in Ohio before 1821); Settlers and Builders of Ohio/SBO (ancestor resided in Ohio between 1821-1861), Society of Civil War Families of Ohio/SCWFO (ancestor served in the Civil War with an Ohio unit or resided in Ohio at one time); and Century Families of Ohio/CFO (1861-100 years from current year).

Except for SCWFO, an ancestor can only be in one OGS lineage society. Since SCWFO is a Civil War society the residency date doesn’t matter, just that the ancestor served in the Civil War and was in an Ohio unit or lived in Ohio. The other three societies are based on lineage and Ohio residency during a certain time period. The ancestor should be proved at the earliest date possible. Therefore, even though some of my other ancestors were in Ohio between 1821-1910, they were proved for SBO and were not eligible for CFO. A little confusing, but it makes sense if you think about it.

Although applying to a lineage society is a lot of work, it is a wonderful way to honor your ancestors and it is a very good way to have your research evaluated and critiqued by another person. As you complete the application you will quickly see what documents you still need to prove vital dates, relationships or residency. I plan to apply to more lineage societies in the future. I do enjoy lineage societies!

Century Families of Ohio medallion

Apr 12

Tombstone Tuesday-Margaretha (Strobel) Miller

Margaretha Strobel Miller (1859-1882) Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Chattanooga

This is the tombstone of Margaretha Miller, nee Strobel, located in row 5 of Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Chattanooga, Mercer County, Ohio. The marker is inscribed:

Strobel/Miller
Margaretha d/o
Johann Strobel
& w/o Jacob Miller
Died 21 Apr 1882
Aged
23 Y, 3 M, 15 D

 

The inscription on the weathered stone is now very difficult to read and I relied in part to the transcription of Mercer County Cemetery Inscriptions Volume VI, compiled by the Mercer County Chapter OGS, 1990, page 96.

I calculate her date of birth as 6 January 1859, which agrees with the information about the Strobel family in the records of Zion Chatt. According to their records Margaretha was born 6 January 1859 near Cincinnati, the fifth child of Johann Peter and Margaretha Dorthea (Herbolzheimer) Stroebel.

Johann Peter Stroebel, son of Gottfried and Catharina Stroebel, was born 10 Feb 1818 in Dottenheim, County Court Winzheim, District Mittelfranken, Kingdom of Bavaria, baptized and confirmed there. He traveled to North America in the year 1849, settled down in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, married there in the year 1849 to Margaretha Dorothea Herbolzheimer, daughter of Thomas and Dorothea Herbolzheimer. The same was born 25 August 1826 in Markipsheim, County Court Windsheim, District Mittelfranken, Kingdom of Bavaria, baptized and confirmed there. Both spouses lived some years near Cincinnati and then moved to Mercer County, Ohio.

Children of Johann Peter & Margaretha Dorothea Stroebel:
Leonhard, b. 6 January 1850 in Cincinnati
Joh. Georg, b. 2 October 1852 near Cincinnati, died at age 7, near Cincinnati
Johann Georg, b. 30 December 1854 near Cincinnati, died at age 2, near Cincinnati
Susann Barbara, b. 6 January 1857 near Cincinnati
Margaretha, born 6 January 1859 in Cincinnati
Johann, b. 17 March 1861 in Cincinnati
Johann Michael, b. 5 August 1863 in Mercer County, Ohio
(source: Family Register, records of Zion Lutheran Church, Chattanooga, page 65)

Margaretha was the second wife of my great grandfather, Jacob Miller. Jacob’s first wife, Sophia Goelzer, died in Bavaria before he immigrated to America in 1871. Jacob married Margaretha Strobel at Zion Lutheran, Chattanooga, on 15 March 1877. (source: Mercer County Ohio Probate Court, Marriage Vol. 4:73)

Jacob and Margaretha had two sons:
Johann Peter (1878-1957), married Della Kuehm
Christian Miller (1880-1911)

Christian never married and died of typhoid fever in the western United States. After Margaretha’s death Jacob married Christine Rueck on 9 November 1882 at Zion Lutheran Church, Schumm.

Apr 08

Spring Cleaning

I am not one for spring cleaning. Our house gets a weekly once over and I usually give it a good cleaning before our family reunion weekend in July, when my cousin stays with us, and around the holidays, when the house is redecorated in fine holiday décor. I used to do spring cleaning, but things have a habit of disappearing around here whenever I clean. Things just seem to vanish and I get tired of trying to track down the misplaced items. I don’t know if my memory is failing or if I just have too much stuff, but I really do spend a lot of time trying to locate things. This phenomenon even happens to Joe in his domain, the garage. On the bright side, I now look at cleaning as an adventure since I often find the things that I lost several seasons before, when I am not even looking for them.

During one cleaning frenzy I misplaced a feather duster, a hammer, and all of our certified documents—birth certificates, Social Security cards, baptism and marriage certificates. Yes, I misplaced all of our important documents. They were all in an efficient folder in a closet, on the same shelf they had been stored on for years. In my infinite wisdom I decided they should be moved to a new, better location. It was not until several months later, when I needed those documents for a project, that I could not remember where that new location was. I looked all over the house for them and finally gave up the search, believing that they had been thrown out by accident. I went so far as to replace all of the documents I could. I acquired new Social Security cards, new birth certificates, and everything else I could replace. But some items were irreplaceable. The whole folder finally turned up about a year later when I was cleaning the basement. I don’t know why I put them in the basement. Perhaps I thought they would be more secure down there in the event of a tornado. It would have been a different story if the basement had flooded. That search had a happy ending, but the feather duster and hammer have yet to turn up.

Over the past few months my office had become quite cluttered. Just about every horizontal surface had become storage for papers, books or photos. That included the largest horizontal surface area in the room, the floor. In fact, the floor was probably the worst. I could barely walk through the room.

It was organized clutter, though. I pretty much knew what was in every pile and I could even find what I wanted fairly quickly. This type of organization often occurs when I am doing a lot of research. I pull out books and binders and don’t put them back because I know I will be looking at them again soon. Most are temporarily filed on the floor. But the stacks had gotten too big. Along with the piles of binders there were newspaper clippings, notes, photos, copies, and other items that needed to be sorted and filed. Yes, it was time to clean my office.

So, knowing the drill around here, and knowing that I would probably “lose” something during the cleaning, I hoped that what I would find would outweigh what I would misplace. I thought of it as a search and recovery mission. I had high expectations that I would find some papers and photos that I had not been able to locate recently. I was not disappointed. Here is what I came up with:

The Rueck family information [Too bad I couldn’t locate this last year when I applied for the new OGS lineage society, Century Families of Ohio. The land deed I found showed that Jacob and Regina Rueck were living in Van Wert County in 1881, which would have qualified them for CFO. They will just have to be supplementals next year.]

2 photos of Maggie & Christina Rueck

Proof that Hallot Bryan was the son of Peter Bryan [Wahoo! To my Brewster, Miller, and Bryan relatives– we have another Civil War soldier in the family.]

Jeff’s AP Style book that he wants back

A large old Schumm Reunion photo

A Brewster research report compiled by a researcher several years ago

Some things I need to give back to Miriam

Some old negatives [Important, because I cannot find the photos.]

All in all it was a successful cleaning day. My office looks much better. I can walk across the floor now without tripping and files and binders are in their new, efficient locations.  And best of all, so far nothing seems to be missing.

As for the missing feather duster and hammer, I have determined that they are not in my office. I haven’t a clue where they could be. I guess I should keep on cleaning. Maybe they will still turn up this spring.