This report covers calendar year 2010. Actually, I am rather proud of myself: I begin to write this report in January 2011 rather than in mid-year, my custom of late. But perhaps I should not pat myself on the back too readily, because this seeming diligence is as much the result of recent events as anything else.
But I am getting ahead of events. The work of 2010 went smoothly enough: I finished some projects, corrected others, and wrote additional papers to explore and report certain topics in detail. Again as in past years, reporting the work does not fall into a neat division of "Felbinger" on the one hand and "Prahl" on the other; I worked on both families at the same time. Unlike prior years, however, the division may be somewhat easier to maintain in the reportage. Once again, I will report my activity chronologicallly.
******
January began pleasantly enough. I was still in Vancouver, British Columbia, visiting Alice and Bob. I took the opportunity to see on-site what Alice is doing for the family projects. Alice is creating dossiers on every family member: in effect, a "mini-biography" for each individual, listing all the information we might actually know about them and how they related and interacted with one another. This work can be even more labor-intensive than what I am doing. I like Alice's approach: it is very holistic. My approach has been to extract information from primary source material (vital registers, lists, record books and other documents), and to arrange the information in the same order that I find it, usually chronological. Of course, transcribing handwritten German records (with occasional Latin) can be quite the job in itself, getting the material into a legible form that anyone can use them. So we're both putting a lot of time and effort into these projects. And our division of the world works well: Alice does Canadian and American material (family material for husband Bob's side of the family, and the greater New York metropolitan area for us), with some occasional German while living in Vancouver. I live in Manhattan (with occasional travel off-island to the "outer" boroughs) and get the "hard" job of going to Germany and researching material there (Yeah, right! Pour more beer into my stein ... ). Alice and I laugh together occasionally about our three thousand mile "geographic shift". Seriously: at some point we will have to arrange all the material into one gigantic collection.
Back in New York the first full week of the month, I spent much time downloading Vancouver souvenir pictures sent by Alice. This might seem a simple task. Truth to tell, the memory stick I used as a backup simply ran out of space and I had to buy a new one with more capacity. Not being a "computer techie", I get nervous when I must do these routine maintenance chores, so I try to slow down in order not to lose anything. In any event, research went forward. Playing with the computer one night, I discovered there are actually two genealogy groups for Schleswig-Holstein. I may need to be in touch with (or actually obtain membership in)both of them:
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Genealogie-Schleswig-Holstein e.V.
/ Genealogy Work Group Schleswig-Holstein / AGGSH
Meisenweg 3
24534 Neumünster
Schleswig-Holsteinische Familienforschung e.V.
Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein / Prinzenpalais
24837 Schleswig
Mid-January I got more active. I made a telephone call to cousin Sherry Campbell in Ohio. First, to catch up with her and all the children/grandchildren; second, to obtain the address and telephone number of her son Douglas. I have a book to send to Douglas, a copy of the Memoirs of U.S. Grant. My possession of the book gives me the opportunity to relate another family story here. As told to me by Douglas's aunt Georgine (Cousin Sis), Douglas's great-grandfather, Samuel Campbell was a "runner" (these days we would say "go-for") for Grant after his presidency. Campbell was quite an admirer of Grant, so much so that when Grant was finishing his memoirs while simultaneously dying of throat cancer in 1885, Campbell traveled from New York City to Mount McGregor to see Grant. He was at first refused visitation by the Grant family, they claiming Grant was too ill to have visitors, until Grant himself called out from the adjoining room, "If that's Sam Campbell, I want to see him", so Campbell was able to pay his respects. As token of his admiration and loyalty to Grant, the family presented him later with a copy of Grant's memoirs. And how did I get the book? This question has entertained both cousins Lorraine and Georgine for many years. Ah, another case of being in the right place at the right time. When Douglas's grandmother, Georgine (Felbinger) Campbell was moving from her house in Hollis, N.Y. to her condominium in Jamaica Estates, I happened to be in the house at the time. Aunt Gene was packing books and when she got to the Grant volume, she said "What am I going to do with this?" She thought it should rightly go to her son Donald, and I agreed. But Donald was in Ohio and I was physically present, more than amenable. Aunt Gene was a bit reluctant, but made me promise I would pass on the volume at the earliest convenience to her granddaughter Donna (why not her grandson Douglas I had no idea, not even at the time). Well, we are many years along now and I still have the volume. But it is time to pass it along, as we rapidly approach the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. But in one respect I will break my promise to Aunt Gene. Both Lorraine and Sis have suggested strongly that the volume would best go to Douglas, because it would be kept on the male, Campbell side of the family. Again, I agree, and so it has been necessary for me to find where Douglas is living.
In the same week I had time to go to the regional office of the National Archives and Records Administration on Varick Street. While there I continued my search forthe death records of GGP Carl Blaicher and his second wife Johanna in the New York State vital records indexes held by NARA. Him I found quickly: died September 15, 1932 (70 years, 7 months short 2 days). Certificate was issued in Mount Vernon, no. 54302. I went looking for Johanna. I reasoned that as she was fifty-three in 1930 she could easily have lived at least another thirty years, and so I might not find her because that would put her in the 1960s, and there is the fifty year statute of limitation for obtaining death certificates. I bravely began with the 1930 death index and worked forward. I did find a couple other Blaichers in Buffalo, but not Johanna ... until I got to the end: 1960. Found her there: died June 6, 1960, age 83, certificate no. 45502, also issued in Mount Vernon. If I had searched for her the previous month of December, I would not have found her, because the 1960 index was released only at the beginning of January. For all I might know, she might have remarried or moved out of state. Come back each January for the new year's release.
Sadly, I checked again for sister Christine Felbinger (or a listing for "Felbinger, female") with no success. This lack of a listing makes me deeply suspicious about what may have happened at the time. The pregnancy was well attested by Mom and other family members (Aunt Chris, and Lorraine and Sis), so I have no problem there. What troubles me is the lack of documentation. Allegedly Mom brought the fetus to term, and yet it was a fetal death. So, what records of the body? I'm very clear that there are records in the indexes for these situations, but none here. Variant spellings of "Felbinger" have not worked because the records are indexed by soundex system. Additionally, where might the child be buried? In that matter, Mom never really said: in Brooklyn, in Queens, in Nassau? Bit of a mystery here.
Another surprise came this particular day: Grampa Prahl's death certificate from the town of Islip finally arrived in the mail. Only discrepency: according to the certificate, Grampa died in Bayport, not Bay Shore. I may be forgiven some vagueness of memory after forty-four years.
January 25th I was off to Staten Island for a meeting of the Woodland Cemetery Association. Main order of business this night was to sign a letter of intent to sign a ground lease in order to develop a portion of the property for commercial purpose, that the Cemetery might have an income. On the way home I realized that the reason why I am a trustee is because the first two generations of Prahls are buried in the Cemetery. And the first Prahl family member in the Cemetery is 2GGM Friedrike Prahl, buried there January 26, 1880. Exactly one hundred-thirty years less a day later, I, her great-great-grandson, signed off to improve the physical condition of her final resting place. Another instance of familial seredipity one can't make up.
My log book for February is filled with entries regarding my preparation of the first biennial report I have ever written. The report covers the family project work for 2008-2009. The very simple reason for this combination is that so many things happened in these two years and my energies were so taken up dealing with several matters, that writing a report was nothing I might accomplish. The actual log book entries are filled with the technical details of preparation. I will not bore the reader here with these details: they are tedious enough. Sufficent to write here that the principal difficulty was writing reports as a Word document, and then attempting correction after transfering the document to the website. My own inclination is to correct the uploaded version, but no, such correction messes up (polite term) the underlying coding that Word processing puts into the document, and then displays the skewed version on the website. The tedium and frustration of deleting the file, going back to the original Word document, make the corrections, re-upload the document only to find other errors needing correction is unimaginable, and in the end became intolerable. Finally I stripped the report of the coding (which cuts the actual number of bytes utilized by roughly 50%, saving disk space), and took to writing it directly on the web site. I did the same for two reports Alice sent to me.
The reports Alice sent relate our travels through New York in 2008. Again my logbooks are filled with the details of preparing those reports; in that sense the reports also come under the conditions stated above. I tinkered stylistically with the texts of the reports, went through them for factual errors, and consulted with Alice about any changes I made either in format and content. I am very proud to have my sister's work on my website for the first time. Her efforts to deal with the New York material has saved me so much time, and creates much collaborative teamwork.
The first report, "Felbinger family tour in Brooklyn: May 17, 2008" tells of our visit to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn to look at the Albany Avenue and near-by addresses that were so often the focus of our father William's stories of his youth. As the Wikipedia article on Bed-Stuy notes: "In the last decades of the 19th century, with the advent of electric trolleys and the Fulton Street Elevated, Bedford Stuyvesant became a working class and middle class bedroom community for those working in downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan in New York City. At that time, most of the pre-existing wooden homes were destroyed and replaced with brownstone rowhouses. These are highly sought after in the neighborhood's contemporary renaissance". It was into this neighborhood that the Felbingers moved, both to live and work. Their residence was at 154 Albany Avenue, later 1632 Pacific Street; GF Felbinger had his bicycle shop at 42 Albany Avenue. Never having visited this fabled part of Brooklyn, Alice and I did not know what to expect and were quite suprised, delightfully so, at what we found.
The second report, "The Prahl family tour in Ridgewood/Glendale, 2008" relates our researches and visit to that part of Queens. As a story-teller, our mother Constance was not always as focused on places as our father (except for "The Bungalow", which see below), and because of family friends Alice and I often visited Ridgewood-Glendale in our youth. But again, sites relating specifically to Mom, her sister Chris and our grandparents Edward and Christina Prahl were as much a mystery to us as was Brooklyn for Dad's sites. For full details, I commend both tour reports to the reader of this report.
In my logbook, I note two entries concerning websites of research value. Cruising the Web one day for information on the 45th New York Infantry Regiment, I found a listing for the "Gettysburg Daily", an online website dedicated to presenting material on the Battle of Gettysburg. In the reference I found, there was listed a presentation by battlefield guide Stuart Dempsey on the role of the 11th Corps of the Army of the Potomac, in which the 45th New York was the lead regiment of the Corps' Third Division, First Brigade on the first day of the battle, July 1, 1863. Looking at all the segments, I found Dempsey's presentation with maps, still photos and video commentary particularly fascinating because they actually show the terrain on which the 45th had its most significant participation in the battle.
As I write these lines in February 2011, I will pause briefly to note that while verifying the URL of the "Gettysburg Daily" to include it here, I found an additional URL for a *German* re-enactment group of the 45th New York. Their website is located at "45th Reg. of Inf. N.Y.S.V. 5th German Rifles". A quick look at the site indicates the usual German thoroughness for detail. In a quiet moment, I will explore it more fully.
Back to report 2010 activities. The other website of interest is that of Stephen P. Morse, who was the creator of the Intel 8086 computer chip that has made so much computer technology possible. In recent years Morse has spent much of his time applying his technological skills to creating web-based genealogy search tools. His web site "Obtaining AD/ED for the 1890-1925 New York Census in one step" particularly caught my eye. Through this index and two hours of search I was able to find the 1905 New York State census record for GP John G. and Cenie Felbinger, and the four children Georgine, William, Henrietta and May at 154 Albany Avenue in Brooklyn: 18 AD, 17 ED, Block D, p. 13, lines 10-15 (image no. 9 on the microfilm reel). The date on the census report is June 1, 1905: Aunt May is listed as 1/12 old. Dad is listed as William G. (for George, not H. for Henry). Looking at website more closely, sadly only the 1905 census is "up". The site shows only what FHC microfilms to obtain if one wants to see the 1915/1925 censuses. Additionally, it's not entirely clear that 1632 Pacific Street to where the Felbingers moved around the corner from Albany Avenue is available on the 1915 census. Order the films and see. Nevertheless, I would commend the Morse tools to anyone in searching for material, being aware they may be no better or worse than several of the other tools available: Morse's advantage is that several tools are available altogether through one website.
For the month of March I have pages and pages of notes about my activity in the logbook. I can summarize all these pages in one sentence: I continued work on the biennial report for 2008/2009, finished and proofed it. 'Nuff said.
That the report was finished by the end of March: good thing. Easter came April 4th, early this year. In addition to the usual Holy Week activities, my travel plan of leaving for Germany Thursday the 8th left little time to pull together my research papers and to consider what work I wanted to accomplish. Happily I had enough of a game plan to occupy me while in Nuremberg.
In this report I will concentrate on work accomplished. For the human interest part of the trip, I commend two reports to the reader: "Travels with my ancestors: a journey through Franconia", written for the German Genealogy Group newsletter.
URL FOR REPORTS HERE.
There is little to tell about actually writing the reports; I will mention them in the proper sequence of events.
This year I landed in Munich for a long weekend rather than make the arduous trek from Frankfurt to Nuremberg. Apart from the usual things I do in Munich, I spent time taking pictures with the new digital camera purchased for the trip. My 30-year-old Minolta still works, but photographic technology has moved on, and therefore the camera is effectively an antique: time to upgrade. Taking photos of familiar sights allowed me to familiarize myself with the camera, without the worry about the quality of the shots.
I arrived in Nuremberg Sunday, April 11th. The next day Monday I went to the Landeskirchliches Archiv der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche in Bayern (LAELKB) in the Veilhofstrasse at my usual time of 8:30. I had several projects planned. First project was to go back and enlarge my transcription of the Ickelheim school records (my Document no. 10) to include any Kett children I might find. One might think this an easy task, yet the editing my previous transcription proved more difficult than I first imagined. I found six entries of Kett children to add, but as usual I also discovered errors requiring corrections to a document I thought completed 5-7 years ago and finished for all time. Additionally, dealing with residual jet lag, the floaters in my eyes and a mild case of the sniffles from the tremendous change in temperature from the 90s in New York to the 50s in Nuremberg made progress slow, and took about two hours before I could determine that I got it all squared away. Moving on the the Pfarrbuch, I corrected the mistakes in my previous transcriptions of the text. After lunch, I started further transcription of the Pfarrbuch, completing pages 24 to 29 of Teil II by the end of the day.
Tuesday the 13th was a good day. Back in the Veilhofstrasse archive, I completed transcription of Teil II from page 30 to the first few lines of page 47.
If yesterday was a good day, Wednesday the 14th was not the best. When I notified the archive of my arrival, I was rather vague about what I wanted to accomplish, so they signed me up to go to the Kirchenbuch center at the Lorenzerplatz for every day of my two week visit. I was not really ready to go this day. I had the bit in my teeth to finish the Pfarrbuch and the Armenkasse. Second, I had not looked at my church book transcriptions since 2007. And third, being tired last night I did not look at anything anyway. First order of business was to write a list of what to do:
I started with the Baiers in Helmbrechts. Big mistake: not having touched the records since 2007, I had no sense of them anymore, except for GGM Heinrietta Baier (Bayer), born 1863. Reading through them did not help particularly, so I took up work on the Oberdachstetten and the Westheim Johann Michael Felbinger (1841-1842) records, as these records present a significant challenge.
In the afternoon I went off to the Gesellschaft für Familienforschung in Franken, to pay my annual dues, purchase a book on scripts, and try to make headway with their records. A few tidbits of information: Dedic, Paul. Kärntner Exsulanten des 17. Jahrhunderts. One mention of Schuri, though not mine, of course. Also: Genealogischer Handbuch bürgerlicher Familien, Bd. 15, p. 119-120. Elisabeth Engelbrecht, June 22, 1620-November 10, 1697, married Jeremias Felbinger, April 27, 1616-March 10, 1644, Brieg in Schlesian, rector of the school in Röslin: also the author of several religious books, if I remember correctly, but should check.
Thursday the 15th I returned to the Veilhofstrasse to finish the transcription of the Pfarrbuch, from page 47 of Teil II to its end. Even had some time at the end of the day to actually read through the transcriptions, that I would not be frustrated when I got home. The big event of the day came in the evening. GFF had arranged with Annamaria Müller of the Archives for an evening of reading through manuscripts. Format of the program was for each GFF member to read a portion of a manuscript while other members read along. Fifteen Germans and one American: with a little modesty I can write I acquitted myself well enough, reading better than some, not as well as others. A paranthetical tourist note: the program took place at the St. Anton Pfarrzentrum, Fürtherstrasse 94 (subway stop: Bärenschanze), and right around the corner from the Pfarrzentrum is the Justizpalast where the Nuremberg war trials were held in 1945-1946.
Friday the 16th I continued to read through my transcriptions of the previous days, finding few errors: hurray! Friday is also the short day in the archives, so I went off in the afternoon to do the tourist thing. On the way back to the Hauptbahnhof at the end of my junket I saw an announcement on the electronic sign board at the tram stop that the air space over Nuremberg was closed. The words were clear, the meaning was not. When reading my e-mail later in the Internet shop in the train station, I found a message from Alice telling me a volcano had erupted in Iceland, and the European governments were shutting down the airspace all over the continent. No one was going anywhere. A quick telephone call to Alice reassured her I was OK, but this information and events of the next week made for ongoing anxiety for the rest of my trip.
As I was not scheduled to fly for another week, however, there was no point to change my plans for this immediate weekend. Saturday morning the 17th I left Nuremberg to take the train to Bad Windsheim, ninety minutes away. By now spring was in its first flush of sunny warmth, and I spent the day visiting several exhibits of the Freiland Museum in Bad Windsheim.
I had planned Sunday the 18th to be the big day of the Bad Windsheim/Ickelheim trip. Before my departure for Germany I had contacted the deanery of Bad Windsheim, to learn when services would be held in the Ickelheim church. Nine-thirty AM was the appointed time. I was prepared to walk to Ickelheim via the road that connects it to Bad Windsehim (having walked it in 2003), but was not eager to do so because traffic on the road travels so fast. In my Bad Windsheim hotel I found two maps that showed both the streets of the city, and more to my purpose, a Wanderweg (hiking trail) between Bad Windsheim and Ickelheim that avoided all the traffic. Eager to arrive at the church in time, I had a moment's hesitation before setting out (for I know the road, the Wanderweg I do not), but ultimately chose the Wanderweg, reasoning that I routinely walk the distance of 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) in approximately fifty minutes.
(Note: the maps below are best viewed online. If printed to paper, a separate copy of the maps should be made. -- JEF)
Map of the southern section of Bad Windsheim. My journey
along the Wanderweg began at my hotel "Zum Goldenen Schwann" at the
southeast corner of the Schwalbengasse and the Holzmarkt, west along the
Rothenburger Strasse to the outskirts of town, cutting across the little
park north of the Cemetery and then south on the Westheimer Strasse to the
pass under the highway, and beyond.
Map of the Wanderweg from Bad Windsheim
to Ickelheim, showing also the villages of
Sontheim and Westheim, both important in
the history of the Felbingers in this
immediate area.
The Wanderweg proved a fortuitous and happy choice.
Heading south from the west end of town, I passed
the Windsheim cemetery, continued along the trail
that led me to an underpass at the east-west highway and
out into the hazy, spring morning sunshine of the
Franconian countryside. As I walked, I stopped to take
several photos of Bad Windsheim, and of Ickelheim as
I approached it. I arrived at the Untertor (Lower Gate)
on the north side of Ickelheim by 9 AM, plenty of time
to prepare myself for the church service.
As I have written extensively of my time in Ickelheim
in the two-part article I wrote later this year for
the Ahnenforscher, the German Genealogy Group
newsletter, I will not duplicate the reportage
of those articles here.
LINKS TO ARTICLES HERE.
Sufficient to write here that attending the church service allowed me to meet Mr. Friedrich Thürauf, whose family has been long resident in Ickelheim, and through him I have been in contact with Mrs. Christa Binder, daughter of a former Bürgermeister of Ickelheim. These contacts have proven most fruitful, but more of this later in this annual report. I spent the afternoon in Ickelheim with a copy of the 1828 map in hand, taking photographs to mark the locations of several places where the Felbingers (certainly the Illinois-California branch of the family) had lived within the village.
LINKS to PICTURES and MAP
About 3 PM I set out to go back to Bad Windsheim by the Wanderweg I had come, and arrived back in my hotel about 4:30 PM. Boy, was I tired, but happy for what I had accomplished.
Now, however, the issues confronting me about travel home preyed on my mind in ernest. I awoke in the middle of Sunday/Monday night with a panic attack: curse of never being panicked in a crisis. The only way I could deal with it was to sit a while and write out all the things I needed to do, both for my research and to make necessary arrangements if I could not fly home on the coming Saturday.
Off and away early Monday the 19th, back to Nuremberg on the 8 AM train, and arrived there shortly after 9. In the Veilhofstrasse archives this day, I read through the Nachträge pages of Teil II of the Pfarrbuch, noticing things I had missed on Friday and making the necessary corrections. I turned in the Pfarrbuch to the archivists, so that they could make for me a CD of the title-page of the document, plus the caption title-pages of the three sections. I also made (yet again, sigh!) several corrections to the Armenkasse records. For this document there is no end to this, but at some point I will simply declare myself finished. In the early evening I called Alice and the office to let them know I was still OK. Also, looking at e-mail in the early evening and cruising Lufthansa's website, I could see they were starting international flights again, if on a limited basis.
Tuesday April 20th I was back in the Kirchenbucharchiv at the Lorenzerplatz. Thought to do a short job: check the Weihenzell registers to see whether there is any further mention of Georg and Maria Sybilla Sturm. This job turned into an all-day project. It's clear there are several Sturms in the Weihenzell area; from their occupations it's at least a good guess they are not related, though if I get back far enough ... Checked the birth register from 1748 when Johann Sturm is born back to 1740, because he is described in the Westheim registers as "youngest son". So clearly there must be older children (including sons), but I found no mention of George and Maria Sybilla. I checked the marriage records from 1740 to 1750: there are a few Sturm marriages, but again: not *my* Sturms. The first Johann Sturm entry is 1781 in Westheim, and his father Georg is mentioned as being deceased: this means a search of 34 years of death records (1748-1781) to determine a death date. Up to 1757 there are Sturm entries, but again not *my* Sturms, neither Georg nor Maria Sybilla. I think to go through the death entries from '57 to '81 quickly to see who's there and then move on to the Baiers in Helmbrechts.
Wednesday the 21st I continued the Sturm search. Looking through the Weihenzell records for the years between 1757-1781, I again found Sturms, but not *my* Sturms. I do not consider the Westheim register *wrong* per se, I can guess that Johann Sturm told the Westheim clergyman what he believed was correct at the time his first marriage was registered. Whether his father Georg and his mother Maria Sybilla actually died in the Weihenzell parish, or went elsewhere following the sheep will just remain unknown unless I find some evidence. While continuing this work, it occurred to me that a search for Georg's birth record is a good thing to do, but with limited time in the Kirchenbucharchiv, the necessity of going through 40-odd years of records on a hunch is the proverbial needle. Georg's wife is almost an impossibility without her maiden name. Effectively this is the end of the line.
Moving on to the Helmbrechts records of the Baiers, I began with the births. I find the Baiers as equally confusing as I find the Meyers and Doppmanns, so I quickly drew a family tree to cope with all the names.
I can get back to 4GGF Jakob Ordnung, listed in the records as a farmer. Son Johann (3GGF Ordnung) fared better by becoming a Zimmergeselle (journeyman carpenter). That might still be considered an agricultural trade in some way, but definitely a step up the ladder. More interesting on the Baier side (if the birth registers are to be believed) is that 3GGF Johann Baier left for America sometime before 1848 and is so listed in the baptismal record of his first grandchild Johann Georg Baier by his son Johann Georg Baier (2GGF) and his wife Katharina Margaretha Ordnung (2GGM). If this is indeed so, then 3GGF Johann Georg Baier would be the first family member to have left for America (North or South?). Tracking him down, however, would be another almost impossible job because the Germans to America records will cover the 1840s, but again the name is common, and if he left earlier, how detailed are the records? Worth a look when I get home.
Going through the baptismal records and drawing the family tree, I am clear I found all of the siblings of Heinrietta Baier (Blaicher) in 2007. But then I got crazy and started searching every Baier (Bayer) I could find in Helmbrechts. I can only say "I was tired" and not thinking too clear. Now I need to go back and check for all the children of 3GGP Johann Baier/Margaretha Barbara (Heerdegen) Baier and 3GGP Johann/Katharina Margaretha (Greim) Ordnung. If I can find the 4GGPs including Jakob Ordnung this would be wonderful. The situation does get complicated because 3GGM K.M. Ordnung was previously married to (and divorced from!) Johann Daniel Merkel.
I continued to go through the records to correct anything I found amiss. Again, I am not too surprised how much I misread, but my reading skills have also improved in three years. One wretched example: Johann Heinrich Baier (1853-1856), died of ... ? Couldn't read it three years ago because the scribe had a truly tiny handwriting and bad characters. Couldn't read it this time either, but thought to try reading it backwards and came up with "Convulsionen". The initial "C" is written like a vertical manuscript "l". Who might guess?
Thursday the 22nd I was back in the Kirchenbucharchiv, working on the Helmbrechts records. This day I accomplished a number of things:
In any event, all this started to become confusing, so I decided to stop and work with the material I have collected.
Last research for the day: I checked the Johann Hoffmann 1873 marriage record in the Ickelheim records for his mother's name. Yes, the name is "Sooss", but on the microfilm this is hard to see, so my original misreading is understandable. But these are the kinds of errors that make genealogy an exacting task.
I took the rest of the afternoon off, to go visit the Melanchthon exhibit in the St. Egidienkirche. A very small exhibit, to commemorate the five times Melanchthon passed through Nuremberg during his life, in commemoration of the 450th anniversary of his death (April 19th).
The above are the last entries in my logbook for the work in the German archives this year. The following day Friday I returned to the Veilhofstrasse to pay my bill, bid the archives farewell, and head for the train station. In planning the trip I had been unable to make a reservation in Munich for the final night because of a large trade exhibition there, so I made a reservation to spend the night in Augsburg, to be able to make an easy train ride to Munich to catch the 11 AM plane. Of course, the Iceland volcano disrupted everyone's plans, and it never occurred to me that if sufficient people had canceled I might actually have been able to change my own plans. So after a pleasant ride on the regional train from Nuremberg to Augsburg, I spent the night in the latter place, to be up very early in the morning to get to Munich. In the event, I did not need to worry. The airlines, Lufthansa included, had taken up flying again, and I did the usual routines of check-in, customs and head for the gate. Of course, I was also obliged to listen to the stories of my fellow American tourists who had more prosaic stories to tell: price enough for peace of mind. The flight was uneventful, except for the end: we flew over Belmont Race Track on the approach to Kennedy, first time I've ever come that way home.
I spent Sunday the 25th picking up the threads of my New York life, always a necessary task after returning from a trip. Thereafter I spent the rest of the month making the corrections brought home from Nuremberg, most of them anyway.
I note here one particularly fortuitous result of my trip to Ickelheim. While still in Nuremberg I received two emails from Friedrich Thürauf, whom I met in Ickelheim. One of the notes included a picture of the former Hirtenhaus (Herder's house) in Ickelheim that he had received from Christa Binder.
Photo taken in 1916. From left to right: Katharina Rückert, b. 11/25/1910; two unknown boys standing one on either side of her; the man with the apron most likely the father of the two boys, the inkeeper and butcher of the guest house "Zum Hirsch" that was torn down in the late 1980s; the two old people are the parents of Katharina Rückert; the man at the far right is unidentified. The Felbinger family was related to the Rückert family by the marriage of Anna Margaretha Felbinger, daughter of Martin Felbinger, to Johann Leonhard Rückert, 2/4/1866; she was widowed in 1869 and married Georg Manfred Reinhard the same year.
I include here the attached note from Christa Binder, with English
translation:
"Hallo Frieder
"Im Anhang das gewünschte Foto.
Das einstige Hirtenhaus hatte die Hausnr. 37, die Schafscheune
die Nr. 38. Von der Schafscheune konnte kein Foto gefunden werden.
Beide Gebäude sind am 14. April 1945 abgebrannt, als die Amerikaner
nach Gegenwehr Ickelheim beschossen.
"Als einstige Bewohner der Nr. 37 sind bekannt: Felbinger, Rückert,
Popp und Beyer.
"Johann Felbinger was Gemeindehirte und Taglöhner. Er
heiratete 1862 die Anna Margarete Sturm. Sie war die Tochter
des Gemeindedieners. Auf Nr. 5, heute die Aschenneller werden
auch Felbinger genannt. Auch auf Nr. 25, heute Herbert Stahl,
sowie auf Nr. 35."
******
"Hello Friedrich
"Attached the desired photo.
"The former herder's house was Number 37, the sheep barn Number 38.
No photograph of the sheep barn could be found. Both buildings burned
down on April 14, 1945, when after resistance the Americans fired on
Ickelheim.
"Former residents of Number 37 are known: Felbinger, Rückert, Popp
and Beyer.
"Johann Felbinger was the communal herder and day laborer.
He married Anna Margarete Sturm in 1862. She was the daughter
of the communal beadle.
"Also Number 5, today the Aschenneller was also named Felbinger.
Also Number 25, today Herbert Stahl, as well as Number 35."
From the note it is easy to learn that, though there are no longer any of my Felbingers in the village, yet there is still a dim memory among the natives that the Felbingers lived there once. And, as usual, there is another one of those ironies that crop up: a little research illuminated the matter. There is a book: Fritz, Stephen G. Endkampf : soldiers, civilians and the death of the Third Reich. Lexington : University of Kentucky Press, 2004, which relates the history of American military action in Franconia in the closing days of World War II. A quick read of the book reveals advance of American forces in mid-April, that though the war was effectively lost for the Germans, yet there continued to be sporatic resistance. When the Americans advanced through Bad Windsheim and approached Ickelheim, they came under fire from some German soldiers still remaining. The Americans did not consider it necessary to clear out the resistance by infantry assault, but chose rather to withdraw and bring Ickelheim under artillery fire. The bombardment set several buildings on fire, one civilian was killed. Among the buildings lost was the Hirtenhaus on the northern outskirts of the village. Exactly sixty-five years plus four days later, I show up looking for the house.
Subsequent communication with Frau Binder has dramatically illuminated my understanding of Ickelheim. To my inquiry about the photograph of the Hirtenhaus (above), she responded by supplying me with the date of the picture (ca. 1916, by a traveling photographer who took several photographs of the village at that time), the people in the photograph, whom I have inscribed in the caption below the picture, and the exact location of the building. By my initial reading of the old 1828 map, I had guessed house number 37 to be on the northern edge of the village, immediately to the west of the Untertor. This opinion did not hold up after looking at the photograph, because the background of the photo shows open spaces, not more village, as one might expect if the angle of the photo is from the north looking south. According to Frau Binder, the Hirtenhaus was actually located on the road to Bad Windsheim, north of the Untertor, the present address being Hauptstrasse 3. A closer examination of the map shows also a couple lots numbered 37 and 38 (with which a view from the west looking east would certainly correspond), and on the map immediately north of these lots is written in large letters "Hirtenfeld", "Herd Field".
Upon another inquiry about a sand pit in the vicinity of Ickelheim, in which Anna Margaretha Felbinger perished in 1844, she sent the following reply (my English translation below the photograph):
"Zu Ihrer Frage nach den Sandgruben in Ickelheim. Hans, mein Mann hat mir diese gezeigt. Nur viel sieht man davon nicht mehr. Das anhängende Bild zeigt, es ist nur noch Wald vorhanden. Aber eine kleine Geschichte dazu, die mir Reinhard Brand erzählte. Er ist 1939 in Ickelheim geboren. Sein Vater hat 1948 einen Stall gebaut. So musste er am frühen Morgen mit ihm per Kuhgespann zu dieser Sandgrube gehen. Es gab dort eine Grube mit weißen und eine mit roten Sand. Der weiße Sand war der bessere und wurde für den Gebäudebau genutzt. Der rote Sand zu minderwertigeren Arbeiten verwendet. Die Sandgrube mit dem weißen Sand war sehr tief. Man musste nach unten klettern und den Sand in die erste Etage schaufeln. Dann in die zweite und dann noch einmal, bis der Sand dann auf den Wagen geschaufelt werden konnte. Die Kühe mussten so lange warten, deshalb ist man bei Sonnenaufgang losgezogen. Sonst wären die Tiere von Schnacken und Steckmücken so geplagt worden, dass sie nicht stehen geblieben wären. Am kühlen Morgen war diese schweißtreibende Arbeit auch für die Menschen angenehmer. Reinhard Brand erzählt weiter, dass er nach dieser Arbeit noch zur Schule musste, die da meist im Sommer um 7 Uhr begann. Es sind bis zu diesen Sandgruben ca. 3 bis 4 km mit 2 Steigen. Die Wald wege waren nicht ausgebaut und die Rote Steige im Wald musste auch überwunden werden. Diese Art von Arbeit ist heute nicht vorstellbar. ... Was ich mich nicht vorstellen konnte, dass Ihre Anverwandte in dieser Sandgrube verschüttet wurde, ist mir dadurch plausibel geworden. Es ist sicher, wie in dieser Chronik vermerkt, so gewesen."
"Concerning your question about the sand pits in Ickelheim. My husband Hans showed me this [picture]. One cannot see much any more. The attached picture shows that there is now only woodland present. But to this a short story that Reinhard Brand related to me. He was born in 1939 in Ickelheim. In 1948 his father was building a stall. So he had to go with him [his father] with a team of cows to this sand pit. There was a pit with white and one with red sand. The white sand was better and used for building construction. The red sand was used for less important jobs. The pit with the white sand was very deep. One had to climb down and shovel the sand to the first level. Then to the second level, and once again until the sand could be shoveled onto the wagen. The cows had to wait a long time, so one left for the job at sunrise. Otherwise the animals would be so plaged by gnats and mosquitoes that they would not stand still. In the cool morning this sweaty work would also be more pleasant for the men. Reinhard Brand related further that after this work he still had to go to school, which in the summer began at 7 o'clock. It's about 3 to 4 kilometers to these sand pits with two rises. The paths were not improved and the Red Rise in the forest also had to be negotiated. This kind of work is inconceivable these days ... What I could not imagine, that your ancestor was buried in this sandpit, has become quite plausible to me by this story. It is definitely so, as the Chronik notes." -- I note here that the "Chronik" is: Ickelheim : eine Chronik, the festschrift written upon the occason of Ickelheim's 1250th anniversary in 1992.
While I continued to process corrections brought home from Germany (I am surprised at the remove of a year to realize that I actually got to them that soon after my return!), I took a short trip to NYPL on April 30th to look at telephone books. Strange thought after so much excitement in Germany, but I was interested to see if might track down Grampa Edward Prahl in them, to see if there were two separate listings for him and Gramma Christina, as the deeds to the Mastic property indicate. I was so taken with the directories I found, I went back the next day, May 1st. Tracking down the books wasn't that easy: even the reference librarian in Local History Division was surprised the Library has them back as far as I required. On microfilm, of course. Difficulty: there were *one* annual telephone book for all the five boroughs of Greater New York until 1929, when each borough got its own directory (white and yellow). Of course, there was only one carrier in those days: AT & T, American Telephone and Telegraph, aka "Ma Bell"). The specific difficulty: for the time frame I need (1925), only the Manhattan and Bronx portions of the directories are on the microfilms, not Brooklyn and Queens. Whether Brooklyn and Queens were ever issued is not clear from the copies in hand. OK, I went back a year to 1924, and found two entries:
Grampa's entry puts him at the address that Gramma used to purchase the Mastic property in her own name. From the real estate deeds it is clear that for some reason they purchased the properties using two separate addresses. Perhaps Grampa used the 4 Martin Avenue address in Glendale as a business address, but that is not evident in the directory. At the the distance of eighty-five years, however, the reason is no longer apparant, and there is no one to ask. The listing for Henrietta Felbinger (Aunt Etta) was something of a surprise: it is the only listing for the Felbingers in Queens in 1924, but this would also include Gramma Cenie, Dad, Aunt Gene and Uncle Doc, and Aunt May as well as Aunt Etta. Why in Aunt Etta's name, especially as Aunt May was working for the telephone company? Again, who knows what family arrangements were made.
When I returned on Saturday the 1st, I found the Nassau County telephone books as well. Thought I might look up the telephone books for when we lived in Valley Stream. I found interesting entries:
The Rockville Center entry confirms Dad's story about finding another Felbinger at the time I was born. Discharged from the Army, Dad would go to South Nassau County Hospital (now South Nassau Communities Hospital) in Oceanside to visit Mom at her lying-in. Dad never learned to drive, and so was dependent on public transportation (one can imagine the state of public transportation at the end of the War). According to his account, he took several buses to Rockville Center, got off near the hospital (paranthetically: this is a difficult part of the story to comprehend, because South Park Avenue in Rockville Center is a mile away from the hospital, but this is the way stories are told; and indeed, Dad may have chosen to walk the distance), walked down the street, and saw the sign of a tailor shop that said: "John Felbinger, Proprietor". And Dad had never stopped to think there might be other Felbingers in the world other than his own (well, the Felbingers are a small tribe). He went in, inquired of the proprietor, who was courteous but not very informative, and Dad went his way. Over the years I too have been aware of this Felbinger family in the Rockville Center/East Rockaway/Oceanside section of Long Island, but have never attempted to make contact. In any event, I am pleased to see the detail of Dad's story, that it was a tailor shop, born out by the entry in the telephone directory. Of course, now I wonder whether Dad checked the entry in the directory.
The entry for "Felbinger, Wm H" is, of course, self-evident. What impressed me about the entry is that, very dimly, I recollect the telephone number because in those days the telephones were party lines, not the private lines of later years. Had to remind neighbors from time to time to get off the phone.
Fast forward the telephone directories to 1950 and found the following entries:
The first number was our number, only now the "5" was added to represent the value of "L", but dimly I remember we did not receive a rotary phone until years later. And then there was the telephone number I really do remember, which was LOcust 1-2238 (even after all these years ...). The other number that I found was the listing for Uncle Gus and Aunt Chris, who lived at the eastern end of the Gibson section of Valley Stream on Stuart Road, until they moved to Massapequa in 1953.
The GGG meeting on May 6th was essentially a lecture on German genealogy in New York State:
Following up on some of the suggestions made at the GGG meeting, I ran "Felbinger" and "Prahl" through the Family Search function. Nothing particularly interesting for the Felbingers in the moment, but I did find reference to 2GGF Charles Prahl and his patent. I decided to postpone this search until I could get a better grip on the Pfarrbuch.
I spent a good portion of May working on typing up my transcription notes for the Pfarrbuch and making sure everything is as correct as I can make it. This work generated a search for the term "Decimalen" through the German Wikipedia site. A substantial part of Teil II of the Pfarrbuch discusses the land holdings of the Ickelheim parish, and these holdings are often described in "Tagewerk" and "Decimalen" (aka "Dezimalen"), which is equal to 1/100 of a "Tagewerk" (aka "Tagwerk"). These are old-fashioned measures for land: varies from place to place, Bavaria had it own measurement.
From the German Wikipedia article for "Tagwerk":
"Ein Tagewerk oder Tagwerk ... war eine früher übliche Bezeichnung für die Arbeit die an einem Tage geleistet werden konnte. Daraus entwickelte sich ein Maß für Flächen, vor allem in der Landwirtschaft, das als Tw oder Tagw. abgekürzt wurde. ... Ursprünglich stammt der Begriff aus der Landwirtschaft und bezeichnet jene Landfläche, die an einem Tag bestellt werden konnte, also von Sonnenaufgang bis Sonnenuntergang. Dabei legte man im allgemeinen ein Ochsengespann zu Grunde, denn Pferde hatten in der Epoche der Grundherrschaft (etwa vom Frankenreich bis 1848) nur wenige der Bauern oder Halbbauern zur Verfügung. Die so verstandene Arbeitsleistung bedeutet bei gleichmäßigen Boden und flachem Gelände ein genähertes Flächenmaß: Das Tagwerk umfasste in Baden, Bayern und Nassau zwischen 25-36 a [= Ar], also 2500 bis 3600 m2, speziell in Bayern 3407.27 (nach anderen Angaben 3408) m2. Unterteilung in Bayern 1 Tagwerk = 100 Dezimal = 40 000 Quadratfuß." "A Tagewerk or Tagwerk was an early, traditional term for the work that could be performed in a day. From this there developed a measurement for area, especially in agriculture, that was abbreviated Tw. or Tagw. ... The term originally developed in agriculture and designated that area of land that could be tilled in a day, from sunrise to sunset. For this a team of oxen was taken as the basis, as farmers and half-farmers rarely had horses for use in the period of the manorial system. The work as understood meant a piece of land of measured ground and flat terrain: In Baden, Bavaria and Nassau, the Tagewerk comprised between 25-36 Ar, that is 2500 to 3600 square meters, particularly in Bavaria 3407.27 (or from other sources 3408) square meters. Subdivision in Bavaria: 1 Tagwerk = 100 Dezimal = 40 000 square feet."
Finishing the work on the Pfarrbuch, I returned to my little excursion of 2GGP Charles Prahl's patent activity. On Ancestry, I found he did not hold a U.S. patent: he held *five* U.S. patents:
Smart guy, 2 GGF Prahl.
The last days of May I started work on the Helmbrechts records, but once again found two problems: not being able to read my notes I had made in Nuremberg; more importantly, not quite remembering how to do tables in Word. Were I working with the program all the time, it might be easier. So I shifted to the Ickelheim Schulbuch records in the first week of June. This work was not much easier, but as I had set up the original work in HTML (as I am doing here), I could pull up the records on the Internet, click the "Source" option and print out the tags I had used previously. This made working on the formating of the Schulbuch very easy, and I made significant progress.
The GGG meeting on June 3rd was a presentation by Wilhelmina Rhodes Kelly about central Brooklyn (aka Bedford-Stuyvesant). My ears perked up particularly when she mentioned the Howard Colored Orphanage near Pacific St. I asked her about this after the meeting, but she was vague on the subject. I checked Google maps and Wikipedia the next day. The Orphanage itself was located at 1550 Dean Street, one block south of Pacific Street and west of Troy Avenue. 1632 Pacific Street was just east of Troy. My particular interest was that according to his stories, Dad had a colored friend as a boy, but Alice has no more specific details about this except that he had one. Wiki revealed that the boundary between Bed-Sty and Crown Heights is Park Place, south of 154 Albany and Bergen and Pacific, so this puts the Felbingers in Bedford-Stuyvesant, just north of its southern border. One thing we missed on the family tour in 2008 was the Brooklyn Children's Museum (also in the neighborhood), of which Dad often spoke well.
On June 7th I came home for a coffee break in the morning to find the electric power off in the apartment. When the electricans came in to fix the problem, they exclaimed I have really old wiring. Guys, the building is ninety-nine years old, built the same year my mother was born. Mom died last year at 98; why shouldn't 99 year-old wiring die? Duh. Happily, I have the luxury to go to the office to work on material. Good thing: the electrical wiring continued to plague me throughout the summer, finally giving up the ghost in mid-September. The electricians jury-rigged a connection to the electrical outlet in the hall. The problem was finally resolved only in February 2011.
Power or not, I went to the Municipal Archives June 8th to use up my free days, and attend a lecture at the regional National Archives office at lunch time. I was looking for the list of names Alice had sent me May 1st, mostly Meyers, but also a Lily Fichtelman, d. June 26, 1878 and a Lilly Fiebbinger, d. September 2, 1880, possibly the 10th child of GGP Johann Georg and Maria Barbara Felbinger.
Before heading down, I checked the GGG NY death indexes to get the certificate numbers. Fiebbinger: Kings, 1880, no. 8678; Fichtelman: Kings, 1878, no. 4811. At the Archives, I looked for Fiebbinger first. A mishmash of letters: "F" ... bad handwriting ... "b" or "t" ... inger. Little and no information (strange). Verso of certificate: Greenwood Cemetery, undertaker, date of burial. Well, could be. I decided to have the copy made, now up to $11 each: gold in them there records. While filling out the request form, I noticed something written on the lower margin of the verso of the certificate, away from everything else: a single word in a clear, 19th century script:
"Felbinger"
Yes !!! Once again to feel the thrill of finding what I was looking for. I was giddy, and started to hyperventilate. When I calmed down, I decided to look for a birth certificate as well. Using the old handwritten index card microfilm, I did not find "Felbinger", but my eyes fell on a "Fellwig, Lily". Variant of a previously seen variant: "Fellringer", "Fellwinger". Got the certificate microfilm, and found bad copy: either "Fellwing" or "Hellwing" (ornate initial letter). Read further and could just dimly make out the name of the mother ("Marie Fichtlemann") and of the father ("Georg Fellwing" or "Hellwing"). Found Lily again: born August 3, 1880: Kings, no. 6975.
Also found Lilly Fichtelmann. Died June 26, 1878 of excessive vomiting, cause unknown. Written in what appears to be a large grease pencil: "Inf. asthenia". Also looked for a birth certificate; found none. Did not have a copy made.
The photocopy of Lilly Felbinger's death certificate came back a positive, revealing faint-handwriting, but could just make out the cause of death: Cholera infantum. Old story.
I started working on the Meyers, but too soon it was time to go for the lecture. I walked from Chambers Street up to Varick.
Over the next few days, the keyboard of the office computer started giving me grief, so I was really shut down for a while until it seemed to correct itself.
June 12th, Saturday, off to Greenwood Cemetery to pick up maps and visit the Felbinger family plot. I spent the following week doing clean up and corrections, and compiling a thumbnail list of the children of GGP Johann Georg Felbinger and Maria Barbara Fichtelmann that I include here:
June 19th, Saturday, I was back to Greenwood Cemetery, this time for a bus tour through the Cemetery. Not the standard tour of the "The rich and the famous" (or "infamous"; gotta go back for that one, usually on Wednesdays, inconvenient). Picked up a technicolor map for Alice to go with the Greenwood book I had sent her. The tour, led by Jef Richman, GW's historian and presented by Dr. Jocelyn Wills, professor of social and economic history, Brooklyn College, her area of research on lives of ordinary Brooklynites in the 19th century. The tour visited the graves of six ordinary people: from all walks of life, what may be known of their lives in the 19th century "boom-bust" U.S. economy that also had no social safety net. People who were almost prototypical Horatio Alger stories of a lot of pluck and a little luck, and still didn't "make it" (or did, after a fashion). Will's several theses: 1) not easy to trace the lives of these people because they did not leave a lot of records behind (this is understandable: I have just finished shredding the last of Mom's financial records); 2) many tried to start small businesses of their own; at least 85-90% of these business failed; 3) the women often played a more significant role in the business affairs of their husbands than the records would indicate. Indeed, the phrase "keeps house" in the U.S. census records was often a code phrase that the husband was doing well enough that the wife did not have to be involved; 4) separations and "divorces" (for all the usual reasons; in fact, many simply remarried without the benefit of a divorce decree, given the fact that in New York adultery was the only grounds for divorce, and remained so until 1971) were actually more prevalent than the records would actually indicate; 5) tracing the lives of the "ordinary people" gives us insight into the elaborate, complex social world in which they all functioned and which has long since passed. In a passing remark, Richman noted that the graves on the perimeters of GW are (as Alice surmised), the "cheap lots", where people could be buried for $5-$10 the grave rather than in the more expensive plots in the interior of the Cemetery. But to spruce up the Cemetery, the management started putting family plots in the perimeter as well (like the Felbinger plot). An interesting source of Wills' research is credit reports written by several reporting agencies about the men and their businesses (written often by failed businessmen, who ought to know). This is a source of research I hadn't considered, but of course would be of particular interest for GGF and GF Felbinger.
In the meantime, Alice and I have been exchanging records back and forth. June 20th I noted Alice requested information about Claus Hinrich Kleen, the husband of Anna Christina Felbinger (see list, above). A quick check of Ancestry brought up a few interesting records of a Klaus Heinrich Kleen, a sailor who jumped ship in New York in 1871. Further, a Federal census record in 1880 in Brooklyn of Kleen, bachelor, driving a pie wagon. Then there is the 1885 marriage, and a death record in 1915. But except for the marriage and perhaps the 1880 census record, there is no real indication that the other records relate to "our" Kleen. The 1892 census might actually reveal something. What is clear is that Anna Christina was living with her son Oliver with GGP Johann/Maria Barbara Felbinger, as indicated in the 1900 Federal census. What I find interesting in this is that Klaus and Anna were married in 1885; Oliver is three years old in the 1900 census, and increments ten years in the censuses thereafter: 12 years between a marriage and a child?
Thursday, June 24th, I was off to Washington, D.C., incidentially for the annual American Library Association conference (the exhibits and vendors are always fun), specifically to visit the National Archives to work on the records of the 45th New York Infantry Regiment. I brought with me a copy of the letter I received from them in 2006 that related to my research. When I got there: security's real tight. Good to know they try to keep the records of the country safe, but it can be debilitating and frustrating too. First business was to look for the pension records of 2GGF Ignaz Merkel (time to do something for the Prahl side of the family); thought I might find a service record for him as well. I found his listing in microfilm series M551, "Index to compiled service records for volunteer Union soldiers", reel no. 96, New York. And his listing: Merkel, Ignaz, 45th New York Infantry Co. C. Also found his pension records listing in microfilm series T-288 "General index to pension files". reel no. 323: Merkel, Ignatz. C, 45 New York Infantry, 1879 Oct 15. Invalid application 316160, Certificate no. 220190. The Archives has a standard request form that works for both military and pension records, as well as bounty land requests. Then sit and wait a while as the staff has regularly established times for a "pull of records". Spent an hour waiting and went off to the cafeteria, and from there found my way to the gift shop. National Archives separates the researchers from the tourists who may be interested only in seeing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Somehow I managed to bypass all of this, but no one complained in the moment that I somehow slipped through the cafeteria. Off to room 203, Central Research Room. This is a remarkable and busy place, about a quarter to a fifth the size of the main reading room in Butler Library, Columbia University ... and the security even tighter, especially as researchers are allowed to bring in all kinds of electronic and photographic equipment to copy material. It's clear the room was set up in the 1930s when the only way to make a copy was to sit and laboriously write out the material by hand. Usual run of helpful reference people and surly attendants, and still had to wait a while for my material: though submitted for the 2:30 "pull", the staff was backed up, so they didn't get around to it until 3:30.
Two items finally showed up. First, Ignaz's military record, with the notation: "We have been unable to locate a compiled military service record for a soldier by the name you listed in the organization that you cited. Please re-check the military index". I was not too surprised at this. The microfilm index suggested that whoever initially indexed the regimental records to begin with may have recreated a listing for each individual soldier, but whether service records *actually* exist for each soldier is another matter. Considering that I received from the New York State Archives only a record card stating Ignaz was listed as a "wagoner" in April 1863 told me that he was listed on the rolls for three years, and did basically what may have been required of him and didn't get into trouble: no one had anything to say of him one way or the other. In any event, the acknowledgement of the Archives was also a step forward, beause not too many know that such records exist in distinction to the pension records.
Second item, pension file: immediate disappointment. The pack, rather thick, was for a Thomas McNickell, App. 310459 1879 Sept 20, certificate 220.190, Pvt., H, 5-KY Infantry. Definitely not Ignaz. And how did I get this? The attendant, clearly the bureaucratic sort, overworked and feeling more than a little put upon, pointed out that the jacket was for the number requested: 220.190. Explains how they file them: by certificate number, not name. Smart, but still not Ignaz. Being diplomatic usually works: I took a brief look at the file and said no, not the right file; but the error may be mine and I will go back and look. Back to the microfilm indexes. To hell with one reel at a time; can't work that way when need to see multiple entries at the same time. Pulled the two microfilms, both for Ignaz and McNickell. It's possible to read that number on Ignaz's record card because of the handwriting; could also be read as 220.100. So I called upon one of the reference archivists. She suggested pulling the microfilm index, series T289 -- "Organizational index to pensions for veterans who served between 1861-1904", reel no. 322 New York, Co. A, 42nd NY Infantry - Co. I, 45th NY Infantry. The reel yielded:
Merkel, Ignatz
1909 Mar 12
1879 Oct 15 Application 316,160
d. 1909 j. Age Certificate 220,196
This appeared to be correct, not because of the number but because of the notation: 1909 Mar 12. Among the papers at home I remember a notation that there was some action on the pension, because Ignaz had died the year before in December. And why the discrepency? Because, the reference archivist, told me, is that the Veterans' Administration took over the pension function in the 1920s (World War I) and decided to redo the entire system (not clear whether individual to organization, or the reverse), but the upshot is that in the 1940s in a space-saving move the VA had all the index records microfilmed with bad microfilm (war-time, of course), and then destroyed the original cards (dumb, but librarians do the same thing all the time). At some point, some clerk miscopied the certificate number, or at least had an overly elaborate handwriting.
Here ended this day's research. Frustrated, I returned to my motel, the Americana, a very 1960s retro establishment in Crystal City on the far side of the Potomac.
The following day, June 25th, GF Felbinger's 134th birthday, I went back to the Archives to make another run at Ignaz's records, but also to attempt to pull the records of the 45th New York Infantry itself. Request slip for Ignaz put in right away. For the 45th records I had to go to the Archive office for Old Army Records. The archivist there was quite helpful and knew exactly what I was looking for, pulled a box of index material right off the shelf:
NWCTB Reference Collection
RG94 E-111 to 115
Regimental Books, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish American War, Philippine
Insurrection
(This gives me the thought that I might find John Meyer and Gramp Prahl, but that
will take more time)
To help myself ultimately, I photocopied the citations:
Note: the 45th New York was amalgamated with the 58th New York Infantry in 1865 at the end of the war, so that one should also look at the records of the 58th New York. For this regiment there are 9 of 9 books, with call numbers 9W3/13/9/1 for Books 1-5, 9W3/13/9/2 for Books 6-9. There are also two regimental order books for the combined regiments, 58th and 45th New York Infantry, 9W3/13/9/2.
This is the motherlode of all records, for which I have searched for a long time. But couldn't do it all in one day, especially as I had only today and tomorrow. So I called for the Regimental Descriptive Book for the 45th, and the Descripve Book for Companies A-D.
In a conversation with the reference archivist, I mentioned that Ignaz had been wounded. She suggested looking at the Carded Medical Records. Good idea, as previous research indicates there was no record of the wound at the time.
Go sit and wait for the "pull of records". The records of the 45th actually arrived before Ignaz's pension records:
Turning to Company C, I found:
#39 Merkel, Ignaz: [age] 32; [height] 5 ft.; [complexion] light; [eyes] blue; [hair] blond; [where born] Germany; [occupation] blacksmith. Enlist: [when] September 21, 1861; [where] New York; [by whom] Capt. Schönecker; [term] three years or war. Remarks: Discharged October 8th, 1864 at Nashville Tennessee by cmp of term of service.
I returned these volumes immediately, secure in the knowledge that the printed versions of the muster rolls 1864/1901 would have essentially the same information, but would still need to compare with these original handwritten records.
The pension jacket finally arrived, at the opposite end of the reading room. Yes, I got the correct jacket this time ... and was stunned to find how much material was in the file. A quick glance indicated that 38 years ago the Archives had photocopied a few selected pages for me. The complete file explains the discrepencies in the records I've had all these years. Infuriating, I found the material in this file as badly out of order as I had found the medical cards, and attendants ever viligant that the patrons turn only one page at a time and *not* rearrange the files.
So I did the only thing I could do in the circumstance: I photocopied everything in the file, page by page, not paying any attention to the order. My photocopying came to 79 sheets altogether. At one point there were two leaves stuck together, and when I attempted to bend them back just enough, an attendant was all over me telling me I couldn't do that. OK, put in a card and I transcribed one sheet later. The task will be to order this mess when I get home. In the circumstance though, I have the bad feeling that person or persons unknown have messed with the file since its deposit. Whether all the records are present I have no way of knowing, and I did not help myself by simply gathering all the photocopies, making a dash for the door to go downstairs to buy a box to take the pphotocopies home. Besides: close to the end of the day, off to dinner with Sis and Vicki Farish. I chose not to come back the next day: to what purpose, if I couldn't bring the pages back with me to check against the originals?
Off to dinner with Sis and Vicki out in Annandale, VA. Among family things talked about:
The following day, Saturday June 26th, I was off to the exhibits of the ALA Convention. Just as well I packed up the NARA operation yesterday: I did not get away from the exhibits until 4 PM. I will not write of my experiences at the exhibits, except for my visit to the Family Search booth, the commercial arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Met a nice lady at the booth, Gloria Stout, who showed me a pilot program they will soon integrate into the regular file. As I have been working on 2GGF Ignaz, I ran his name through the file and six records came up. As I feared, and why I have been reluctant to pursue this family line, is because "Merkel" in this part of Germany is like "Smith" or "Jones". Of the six, all appeared to be the wrong dates. But one did catch my eye: Ignatius Merkel, *31. Juli 1829 ~2. August 1829 in Gaggenau, Baden, of Wilhelm Merkel and Dorothea Futterer. This record grabbed my attention, as I remembered seeing a notation in Ignaz's pension records of being *born" August 2, 1829. Could it be??? As it is only a citation, it's hard to tell and Ignaz declared himself born in Baden-Baden. Where is Gaggenau? Don't know, will have to wait until I get home. Gloria also gave me contacts, noting also that the FHC in Manhattan has opened again. Haven't visited Queens in a while, but having a center in Manhattan would be ideal.
When I got home the following day, Sunday the 27th, I checked Gaggenau: it's the next large town northeast of Baden-Baden. This gets too close for comfort and I need to check it out at the earliest convenience. The following day I sent Alice copies of the baptismal certificates of Dad, Aunt Gene and Aunt Etta, with the additional information I wrote on the back of each (godparents). When looking at Vicki's book, I found written on a sheet in Aunt Gene's hand that she had been confirmed in Trinity Lutheran Church. Alice understands it was Calvary Lutheran. 'Nother mystery to solve.
In the early days of July I spent time clearing out the backlog of translations requested by several GGG members. Fine: but I find the work tedious. I have decided I will do the one hour free translations that the Group allows, but no more extra jobs. They take too long, I charge too little, and occasionally I don't get paid. I need the time for my own work. On the 3rd, I went back to Greenwood early to try and get better pictures of the Felbinger family plot, and to make a record of names on surrounding graves to plot a map to find the family plot more easily. Back in Manhattan, bought a copy of Chancellorsville : the battle and its aftermath / Gary W. Gallagher. Long article about medical care therein. More general information about 2GGF Ignaz.
My attention shifted back to the Felbinger side of the family. July 8th I sent Alice the Federal 1880, 1900 and 1910 census records for GGP Felbinger. The piece of information most pertinent here was that GGP Johann Heinrich/Maria Barbara let the census taker in 1900 know they had had *10* children. Glad everyone is now clear about that! I mentioned to Alice in my cover note it would be good to find the Meyers in the 1900 census as well. Ran a quick check and found thirty-six John Meyers in Brooklyn at the time. Several I eliminated quickly because of the middle initial. But one intrigued me because living with wife Catherine in the 22nd Ward. Pulled it up to find he is a longshoreman, b. 1845, immigrated 1860; she also born 1845, immigrated 1866; married thirty-four years. Found them! Living with them: Dora, age 63, b. 1836; sister to John head of house and widow. Children: Fred, age 25 (b. 1875); Annie, age 16 (b. 1886) ... and John, age 13, b. 1886. Near fell off the chair: the elusive "Uncle Johnny"!?!?!? Sis's insistance and clue had paid off. Obviously the Johann Hinrich Meyer b. 1870 would be old enough to fight in the Spanish-American War and be 37 years when he died in 1907. So "Uncle Johnny" could not be he; I already knew this. But her statement that he had been single had sensitized me to the possibility there might be two of them, and I now had the proof. As we have accounted for ten Meyer children, and I have found one more, we are down to one missing.
On the 12th I wrote out a list of the Meyer children for my logbook. While writing the list, it dawned on me that "Uncle Johnny" would be old enough to have fought, not in the Spanish-American, but certainly in World War I. I checked the Ancestry World War I draft registration cards (oh, how many John Meyers could there be, ya think??). Got lucky: found "Uncle Johnny's" card rather quickly. John Meyer: b. November 10, 1888, registered in Brooklyn. Fell off the chair again when I got the image of the card: living at 1632 Pacific Street. What's the likelihood of a non-related Meyer living with Cenie Meyer Felbinger?
The 16th I went out to the Woodside FHC to go through the Zion church records again to make sure I had not missed "Uncle Johnny" (and the now elusive 12th Meyer child) the first time. Turned the crank of the microfilm very s-l-o-w-l-y; found several Meyers in the four-year gap between Dietrich (1879) and William A. (1883), but none by J.H. and Catherine Meyer. Also checked for "Uncle Johnny" after Aunt Annie (1885), going as far as 1890. Again, nada.
In the next days, I also thought about sister Dora Meyer. Remembering that Aunt Gene said she had "died young", and not having found a confirmation record for her in the 1884-1886 time frame I might exspect to find her, it occurred to me that she was likely dead by that time. On the 18th, Alice sent an email about Dora, asking whether I had ever looked for the Meyers in the 1880 Federal census. I had not, so off to Ancestry again. Ran "Meyer, Cenie"; nothing. OK, try "Charles Meyer"; more than a few of these, but after several pages I found a citation for Charles *Myer* (variant spelling) with parents John H. and Catherine. Bingo! All the Meyers through 1880, living at 238 Flushing Avenue, right across from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In sequence: John H.; Catherine; Charles; Celia (that's why no "Cenie"); John H.; Catherine, Frederick, Alexander ... and Richard!?!? In my excitement I thought I had found the elusive 12th child, but on a check of records: no, it's Dietrich, died in 1883. I checked his birth certificate, the only one of the children to have one; there he is "Dick" Meyer (aka "Richard"), so the search goes on for the elusive 12th child. But, Dora is not on the list: this means she died sometime before the census-taker showed up, so we can pinpoint her between 1871 and 1880. Cuts down the search tremendously.
Alice's note also mentioned an article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle about a man named Uckert having an accident when the wagon he was driving ran over him. Date of article: December 28, 1897. Quick check: yes, the man of the accident is John Uckert, husband of Katherine Meyer.
My log entry is for July 21st: "an exciting 2 days: went looking for one family member and found others". The day before I had gone back to Woodside in complete expectation of finding Dora Meyer's death record therein: how could I have missed it the first time? The reason was finally easy: after working with the microfilm for so many years, I noticed that the films do *not* contain the death register between March 3, 1868 and March 3, 1880: a gap of twelve years! Being rather brain dead in 2006 certainly didn't help matters any. OK: will have to contact Zion direct. In the meantime Iris, the keeper of the reading room, pointed out a few things to me on the "family search" website, that they have the 1865/1892 New York State censuses. Oh happy day!!! Took a quick look and found GGP Felbinger in the 1892 census with only the younger children at home. Of course when I get home I cannot duplicate the search, but I find other similar things, and found the Felbingers again.
For a lark I input "Prahl" and the site brings up more than a few. I narrow the search to Charles Prahl and Grampa. The site brings up two marriages for "Charles Prahl". The first, 1880: OK, that GGU Charles Edward Prahl. The second, 1881: Charles Prahl to a Katie R. Cornell. Duh!?!?! Probably a different Charles Prahl ... until I look at the parents of the groom: Carl F. Prahl, Johann Lundt. DUH!?!? They are 3GGP Prahl, back in Oldesloe. Did 2GGF Charles Prahl marry a second time?? And why didn't Grampa mention this???? Well, OK, he wasn't born yet, but at some point he must have known about this second marriage. Marriage certificate: Manhattan, Oct 28, 1881, no. 6982. So now I have to find out more about Katie R. Cornell. In searching this database, I found a Kate R. Cornell, born in Manhattan in 1864 to James and Letitia Cornell. In the 1880 Federal census I found Kate Cornell living in Cranford, New Jersey. Gotta be her because Charles was often in Cranford. But this would make the marriage definitely a late October/early April wedding. Another record came up: a birth record of Mabel Lloyd Prahl, parents Charles Prahl and Katie Robinson Cornell Prahl, b. September 6, 1888 in Brooklyn, and from previous research I know he was living in Brooklyn at the time. All this is a MAJOR revelation!!
Running more records for Mable and Katie: no luck with Mabel. But running "Prahl" through the GGG New York City marriage and death records, I find: Kate R. Prahl, married to George W. Kline, Manhattan, November 1, 1887, no. 16530. So sometime between 1888 and 1897 2GGF Charles and Kate split: divorced, I might trust, but if so, who was the aggrieving, who the aggrieved, party? He went off to die in Staten Island in 1904; she??? And if Mabel's still alive, would she have gone with her mother?
Oh, incidentially: a letter to Zion about the missing records of March 1868 to March 1880.
July the 22nd, Alice sends me her information sheet about Charles Prahl. Later in the day she sends me a follow-up to my initial findings about Charles, Katie and Mabel:
July the 27th I thought to go out to Woodside FHC to ask Iris again how she searched the Family Search website. In the afternoon I got to playing with it, and found the link: she had gone through the Hispanic material "Hispanic Family History Sources". Click, and on the next page go to "Portal: Hispanic family history resources (English)". Under "Records and Databases", see "Family Search/Record Search". This brings up "Record Search: Browse Collections". Right on top: "Canada USA and Mexico". So can scroll down to the New York material. I also ran material for New Jersey because of our new-found kinspeople west of the Hudson. In the New Jersey death index, I ran "Prahl" and up pops a record for "Prahl, Male. Father: Charles Prahl, Mother: Katie Prahl, died 14 Oct 1882, Cranford, Union, NJ". So yes, 2GGF Charles and Katie had at least one other child besides Mabel.
Ran Ignaz for a New Jersey death record. Found an Ignaz Merkel dying in Newark, Essex, a mile south of Belleville, but all the dates are wrong. Still, I would not be surprised he was taken to Newark for his final days.
And surprise of the day: I found the Meyers in the 1892 New York State census. I ran them through Uncle Fred: after all, he picked up strays, maybe I would get lucky, but a Fred Meyer might be easier than anyone else. And found them, with the name misspelled: Myer, as in the 1880 Federal census. Nothing fancy in the 1892 NYS census, but a simple listing of names:
This record is interesting because nine children are listed: all the children who made it to adulthood are here. We also know of Dora and Dietrich, that's eleven. And in the gap between Dietrich and William [A.], there's room for at least one more child. Who?
July 29th, I received via inter-library loan the booklet: Schaub, Hans. "Hintergründe der Auswanderungen aus Oberfranken nach Nordamerika". In: Heimatbeilage zum Amtlichen Schulanzeiger des Regierungsbezirks Oberfranken. Bayreuth im Januar 1994 Nr. 206. Background information about the emigration situation in Oberfranken, which affects GGM Baier (Blaicher) and her siblings who came to America. Based on the author's doctoral dissertation, little doubt. Made a photocopy.
There are only three entries in my logbook for August. They are "catch-up" entries I write from time to time when I haven't recorded everthing that's been happening.
On August 7th I noted that Alice has been busy, exploring the Family Search website. Wrote she in an email: "I'm like a kid with a new toy on this website." It's working well, not only for the Felbingers and the Prahls, but the Korfmans as well. Alice pulled up a Charles Pfortner, private, also in Co. C of the 45th New York Infantry. I'd seen his entry some time ago, and 'tis intriguing to think the Felbinger side might have served with the Prahl side in the war, but without additional information it's difficult to know.
Alice has also been going further afield with her research. She wrote me that she found:
1) Marriage December 6, 1903 of William Meyer / Mary I. McDermott, in Boston MA. He born 1883; parents: John H. Meyer, Katherine Dopman. She thinks it a second marriage. I am not so sure, but certainly an intriguing entry that needs a follow-up.
2) Marriage, June 22, 1910 of Henry Baier / Alexandria Tastula, in Fitchburg, MA. Second marriage for both. Groom from Helmbrechts, Germany, b. 1861; father, Georg Baier; mother Margaretha Ordnung. Would be good if could find Henry's first marriage.
3) I suggested to Alice to look for GGP Blaicher. In response, Alice wrote saying that all she had found was two records for a Louis Bleicher, b. 2/1886; d. 1/6/1887 (common variant spelling). The birth record says: Boston, Suffolk; parents: Charles Bleicher; mother, Henrietta Bleicher. The death records says: d. Boston, 1/6/1887; b. Cranston, RI. At the time I thought this strange, because it would shorten the amount of time for the birth of GM Christina Blaicher Prahl (b. August 3, 1886, according to Grampa).
While I write this report in March 2011, I have gone back and looked in the Family Search files. Since Alice's writing in August the Mormons must have added images, so I can look directly at both the birth and death records for Louis. I am reasonably convinced he is a true son of GGP Carl and Henrietta Blaicher. The birth record appears as part of a continuous listing of births in Boston for the year 1886. It gives the date of birth for Louis as February, but does not list a day. His father Charles is listed as a teamster (an occupation he also plied in New York). Further, the birth records on the page are not in any particular chronological order by date, but are a hodge-podge of listings. This leads me to believe the record of Louis' birth was not contemporaneous with the event. The death record is more detailed. It lists his death as January 6, 1887; age at the time of death, one year and eleven months. If this is so, it would mean a birth in February *1885*, not 1886. This would be more than sufficient time for him to have been born, and then a sufficient gap of time for a pregnancy leading to the birth of GM Christina Blaicher Prahl. According to both birth and death records, the Blaichers were living at the "rear, 188 Pynchon Street" in Boston. There is no Pynchon Street in Boston, not in 2011. A check of Wikipedia led to an article about Washington Street in Boston, and in the article Pynchon Street is now called Columbus Street: that little mystery is resolved. According to Louis's death record, he died of meningitis; he was born in Cranston, RI. Did the Blaichers marry there, 1884 perhaps? This would make sense, but there is no family story of the Blaichers ever being in Cranston, only that GM Christina was the first child, born in Boston. As I wrote to Alice in August 2010, Louis's very existence comes as a revelation. But the event of his life should not come as too much of a surprise. Obviously Grampa would emphasize the living (no point in dwelling on the dead, even if he knew of them), and Gramma as his wife would of course hold a special place. That Grampa did not mention the Blaicher twins William and Henry, born in 1905, is another facet of this phenomenon. Last, our basic knowledge of the Blaichers is based on the article in Schlegel's American families of German descent, written not merely to express the interest or vanity of some individuals wanting their names in a book. Schlegel was written as much to relate to the broader American public in 1916-1917 that Americans of German descent were loyal, faithful and true-blue, so obviously positive aspects would be emphasized, negative aspects downplayed or ignored.
In August 2010 I double-checked the 1900 Federal census for the Blaichers. There they noted that they had had *seven* children, of whom six were living, but on the census only five are listed (Arthur, Helen, Carl, Joseph and Violet). GM Christina is not listed, nor have I ever found her in the 1900 census, but we know she was alive. So: who was the seventh child? Best guess now is Louis. As William and Henry were born in 1905, to the best of my knowledge (at the time of this writing, March 2011) the Blaichers had nine children altogether.
LIST OF BLAICHER CHILDREN HERE
As I write this report in March 2011, two other thoughts occur to me. First, if Louis's birth was reported in 1886 and the report mentions the Blaichers were living at 188 Pynchon Street in Boston (Roxbury or Brookline, I am vague on Boston geography), and his death record also indicates the Blaichers were living at the same address in 1887, this information also resolves an issue of long standing for me: where in Boston were the Blaichers when GM Christiana Blaicher Prahl was born August 3, 1886? Well, obviously at the same address. A little piece of deductive reasoning goes really far. In the moment, the web sites do not have records for GM Christinia in Boston, but I can now afford to wait; I can certainly refrain from spending a lot of money to have researchers in New England check information in Boston, though perhaps I might to find a baptismal certificate. Second, I thought to run GM Christina through the Family Search site and expand the search to include her life span. This search brought up an entry for her in the 1905 New York State census, living with Joseph H. and Lillian Anrig at 983 Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. A delightful find: it mitigates the lack of record in the 1900 Federal census, and puts her squarely in place to meet Grampa sometime in the last years of the first decade of the 20th century. Glad that's taken care of. I sent off the New York State census record to Alice. She replied with the comment that perhaps the reason we have not found GM Christina in the 1900 census is that she was off somewhere else finishing her education, and not living with her parents and siblings, as the 1900 census indicates. Alice cites Schlegel, noting that the entry for GM Christina states (vol. 3,p. 84): " ... graduated from the New York Public School No. 54 at One Hundred and Fourth street and Amsterdam avenue [there is a playground there now, on the northeast corner of the intersection]. She then studied music on the piano, and also took lessons in embroidery, and was later employed as cashier in the confectionery and catering business carried on by her uncle, Joseph Anrig". An interesting theory by Alice, not exactly confirmed but certainly suggested by the wording in Schlegel.
Back to writing the 2010 annual report. August 15th the logbook notes I sat down to write for the German Genealogy Group Part I of an essay: "Travels with my ancestors: a journey through Franconia", a report of my research trip to Germany in April. As these pages obviously show, my writing style is too expansive to keep the article to a few pages, so I broke it up into two parts. In the two articles I chose to emphasize the human interest side of my research trip, and downplay the more tedious research elements. The two articles appeared consecutively in the January and February 2011 issues of the Ahnenforscher, GGG's monthly newsletter.
Alice sent an email saying she had looked at "Uncle Johnny" Meyer's draft registration card, noting that according to the card he had been on active service with the U.S. Army field artillery for nine years. Had to go back and read it for myself; best guess his period of service would be sometime between his 18th birthday (1904/06) and nine years after (1913/1915). Given this information, I am surprised he was not called back to serve in World War I. Alice wanted to know if we might find his military record. Little idea, because it was still the peacetime Army. But obviously the first place to ask would be in the National Archives in Washington, where I was in June.
The August 31st entry notes Alice's arrival for some days in New York. She (We) had lists of people to search for in the Municipal Archives. Alice's list:
To this list I added my own:
Within a couple days Alice and I were off to the Municipal Archives, September 2nd. This is an anniversary day: 130 years ago this date, our recently discovered GGA Lilly Felbinger died of cholera infantum. Told Alice: we think we have a family member cheering us on. We pursued our lists:
LIST OF MEYER CHILDREN HERE.
And now the Prahl records:
Labor Day Sunday Alice and I decided not to go to Queens to find the parish where Mom and Dad were married (bit of a journey for that one). Rather, we chose instead to go north to West 134th Street to visit our friend the Rev. Rhonda Rubinson, who is now priest-in-charge at St. Philip's Episcopal Church. Wonderful time there. Apart from visiting an old friend, a bit of method in this: Alice has never seen the site of 507 Lenox Avenue (now: Malcolm X Boulevard) at the intersection of 135th Street. At the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century the west side of the Avenue was all brownstones, and the residence of 2GGP Merkel, GGM Delia Merkel Prahl, and Grampa Prahl and his two sisters Adelaide and Mathilda. The Schomberg branch of the New York Public Library is there now. In the evening Alice and I ran daughter Dora Meyer through the Greenwood Cemetery records looking for a citation to her grave. We are clear she is not buried as Meyer, Meyers, Myer, Myers, Meier or Meiers. I also ran a search through the years 1878-1880 using "D" for first name, "M" for last name, and found no entries coming anywhere close for a Dora Meyer. We may have to make inquiry through Greenwood's genealogical services to figure this one out.
Labor Day Alice and I ran "Prahl" through the Family Search pilot site, "New Jersey Deaths" and "New Jersey Births & Christenings". We found the following citations:
September 7th, Tuesday, Alice and I went out to Calverton National Cemetery to see Mom's and Dad's graves. We found them in a state of renovation: maintenance men were replacing with new sod the burned-out turf I found last year. This is Alice's first real visit to the grave: Dad was buried in February 1983; Mom, February 2009. At Dad's death, Mom had not wanted Alice flying in from Canada, fearing the winter weather (actually it was sunny weather the whole time in New York, seasonably chilly). In 2009 we did not take the time to visit the gravesite when we buried Mom. A lot of years to have to wait. In the afternoon, we went looking for the Bungalow in Mastic. This year, with map and picture in hand, we finally found it on Carlton Avenue. Of this visit, I will have more to say later in this report.
From September 8th to the 11th Alice and I were off to Vermont to visit our Cooper cousins. At the same time, Bob went to visit his sister and brother-in-law in Ottawa, and they came down to Vermont as well, so several families were altogether at the same time: a gathering of the tribes, a good time was had by all.
After I got back to New York, right back into research:
My logbook indicates that from September 20th to October 16th I worked principally on 2GGF Ignaz Merkel's pension records. First order of business was to sort the entire file by date; yes, badly out of order by date. After getting all the sheets arranged in chronological order, I pulled out the papers that National Archives sent me so many years ago, first to know that I had photocopied them again, and second to see how they fit in the picture of the larger file and to integrate them with the new material.
This work was a mess, but after examining each individual photocopy, I could come up with a basic story. After his military service 2GGF Ignaz may well have collected the pension voted by Congress in 1862 to be paid to every veteran who had spent more than ninety days in Federal service during the war. From the records this possibility is not entirely clear. At the start of the records, Ignaz applied for the pension in 1879. He spent the next thirty years of his life battling with the Board of Pensions (Department of the Interior) to obtain what he considered his just due as an *invalid* pensioner because of his wound. So the story goes: Ignaz was wounded by gunshot on May 1, 1863. The wound itself was minor, doing damage to his large right toe. In his pension claims, Ignaz stated he was removed to the 11th Corps Hospital (where? which of many?), and was kept there for three days. Further, he claimed that he did his time, spending three continuous years in the field. As a result, the wound caused him all kinds of physical problems, especially after rheumatism set in from all the exposure to the elements. Through the thirty years until his death, Ignaz must have spent untold amounts of time and money on lawyers and doctors to contest the Board's rulings, trying to obtain a larger pension. One can guess the amount of money spent was probably larger than what he actually recovered. The crux of the matter was: there was no *contemporary* record of the alleged wound. Not hard to understand. Ignaz was wounded May 1st. On May 2nd, Stonewall Jackson assaulted the right wing of the Army of the Potomac with a devastating attack. The 1st Brigade, 1st Division, 11th Corps (consisting of the 45th New York, along with the 41st and 54th New York regiments, and the 153rd Pennsylvania) suffered the full weight of the initial onslaught that effectively routed and dislocated the entire 11th Corps. Considering the collapse of the entire right wing of the Army of the Potomac and the desparate measures required to save the rest, it is easy to understand that written records had low priority in the immediate circumstance, even in the field hospitals. But: in all armies, nothing happens or has happened if the paperwork's not done. By a divine providence Ignaz's life was spared by being wounded the day before, so he missed the whole fiasco. But this meant he would face the equally formidable, intractible foe of the Board of Pensions to the end of his days. Early on, the Board must have suggested to him that if he could get an officer to certify the alleged wound, they would reconsider the matter. At the remove of at least 15 years, where would Ignaz find one? So he got two old army buddies to testify on his behalf. Non-commissioned officers (his former sergeant and corporal) to be sure, but the Pension Board (like all pension boards) effectively came back with: "Yeah, right, old vets stick together". And though the doctors of the Board of Pensions acknowledged that Ignaz had indeed been wounded somehow, in its considered opinion the Board did not think the severity of the wound warranted a substantial increase in his pension. Over the years there was some slight increases in the benefit, until in 1907 Congress granted everyone the same pension benefits simply on the basis of age. Ignaz did not live long enough to enjoy the $20 a month he was now collecting: he died in December 1908.
After having read through the papers, I decided to write up a descriptive inventory of the file. This inventory permits me to gather the necessary information from each application, and to comment on the information. My logbook from September 20th to October 16th is filled with the minutiae of how I wrote the inventory. I feel no need to fill to report that detail here, for I wrote much of it into the inventory itself. I will comment here that the inventory was written to the best of my ability. Several pension application pages were filled with the comments of the Board of Pension doctors, and doctors' handwritings then are as bad as they are now. Unfamiliarity with medical terminology has made the inventory less than perfect. Last, as of this writing the inventory is not complete, because it needs to be checked against the actual file in Washington. I will have to wait to make that trip again.
URL FOR INVENTORY HERE.
While working on the inventory, I also spent time on other projects. These included:
My logbook notes I started working *finally* on the Helmbrechts records on October 17th, after five months. This work occupied me through the end of the month. As I read through my log notes, I am quite clear that the Baiers and Ordnungs are as troubling to me as the Meyers and Doppmanns, and almost as difficult to keep straight, to bring Ordnung out of chaos. Happily, the records of GGM Heinrietta Baier's (Blaicher's) siblings have been clear enough; it is getting back behind them to the prior generations is where the confusion comes in.
3GGF Johann Baier, Metzger, seems to come out of nowhere. In addition to 2GGF Johann Georg Baier, he has an older son Johann Christian B., b. 6.III.1824, d. 27.IX.1826. And a younger son, Georg Heinrich B., for whom I have not accounted: he is listed on the baptismal record for the first child of 2GGP Baier's first child Georg Heinrich, bapt. 18.IV,1849, d. 25.I.1850. This record also indicates that 3GGF Johann Baier (and I may assume 3GGM Baier as well) is in America. But note also that on the marriage record of 2GGP Baier, 3GGF Baier is already dead: perhaps in America, perhaps not. So: I need to check for death records of both 3GGP Johann Baier and Kath. Marg. (Barb.) Baier (b. Heerdegen (Kort)). Of course, the G.H. Baier as godparent might be the son of a different Johann Baier, but I think this unlikely.
The Ordnungs are not much better. Some added confusion here is that 3GGM Katharina Marg. (Barb.) Ordnung was first married to Johann Daniel Merkel (no relation to the Ignatz Merkel family of Baden), whom she marries in 1810 and divorces. He marries a second time in 1821, and she marries 3GGF Johann Ordnung in 1824. This much is clear. I need to find the Merkel children, if any, as they are also cousins.
The difficulty is that 3GGF Johannes Ordnung (b. 1785) is listed as the second son of Jakob Ordnung, farmer in Günthersdorf. Thing is: I have another marriage record for a Johannes Heinrich Ordnung (b. 1780, m. 1809 to Sabina Kath. Lenz, so he is listed as 29 years old) who according to the record in the 3rd son of Jakob Ordnung, farmer, same place. Some one is very confused, though it could be the recorder of the records. The marriage record for Johannes Heinrich O. indicates Günthersdorf is ordered with Schauenstein (north of Helmbrechts), and a quick check of LAELKB indicates they have those records, so I may be able to get behind the Ordnungs.
And in the midst of all this wrestling with the Helmbrechts records, I noted in the logbook, October 29-November 2, that I spent some time transcribing the Richmond County Clerk's copies of the two original land deeds for Woodland Cemetery. Apart from the difficulty of the hand, I was slowed down by the fact that the Clerk indicated no punctuation in the copies. I suspect this allows the lawyers to interpret the deeds without consideration of punctuation, but it makes transcription harder.
November 1st and 2nd I wrote out the second part of "Travels with my ancestors" for German Genealogy Group's newsletter.
Saturday, November 6th I attended a conference at NYPL sponsored by New York Genealogical and Biographical Society: "Beyond the Basics", presented by John Phillip Colletta. Colletta wrote the book They came in ships, one of the standard texts on how to find your ancestor in the passenger manifests. I confess: I have bought the book, but not read it. Obviously I will have to read it now because I have had not luck finding 2GGF Prahl or the Meyers and Baiers in the records. Program for the day: 1) Passenger arrival records; 2) Naturalization records; 3) Turning biographical facts into real-life events: how to build historical context; 4) Breaking through brick walls: use your head! Basically I went for the first lecture, and the others were just fine.
While sitting in church the next day, and ruminating on what I had learned the day before, I realized I actually do know a lot about 2GGF Prahl's passage, I just have not found it in the records:
November 9th I went to the monthly presentation at NARA on Varick Street. This month the topic was military records as a source of family information. Some resources to note:
My logbook notes that on November 20th I had spent the week cleaning up the last of the work from Nuremberg for this year, as well as preparing the transcriptions of the Woodland Cemetery records. November 26-27th, Thanksgiving weekend, I started downloading pictures from the new camera. This task proved easier than I had thought, but I did want to do this as a project that I would devote myself only to this.
November 28th I started a project I had not really thought to do, but got into it as I went along: I wrote a short paper about the Bungalow in Mastic, pulling out pictures from Mom's photo album, as well as the couple photos of the Bungalow I had taken in September.
Monday the 29th, I went across to Staten Island to report to my fellow Cemetery trustees of my progress on behalf of the Association. While crossing the intersection a block from my destination, I was struck by a car and thrown to the ground. Police and emergency medical personnel were called and arrived in a few minutes. I was removed to the local emergency room and treated there. I returned to Manhattan the following day. My injuries were not particularly serious physically, but altogether I was well shaken by the incident and it took me well into January to make full recovery.
There are a few entries in my logbook for December. These relate principally to putting the finishing touches on Part II of my travel paper for the German Genealogy Group and mailing it off, and finishing and editing my paper on the Bungalow. After I made the first completion of the Bungalow paper, I realized why I had been so seized by it: it was a year ago I had taken the trip to Riverhead, NY to the Suffolk County Clerk's Office to find the information, and I finished the paper on the eve of Grampa's 128th birthday: Happy Birthday, Grampa!
URL FOR BUNGALOW RPT HERE.
This finishes the report for the year 2010. Much work has been accomplished; much work remains to be done.
-- Finished 1st draft Shrove Tuesday, March 8, 2011. Off now for pancakes!
Finished 1st read-through and corrections by March 12th.
Second proof and corrections: April 12th, mid-Atlantic; April 28 - May 3, 2011.