Some Breaking Through on the Direct Female Line

For years I never knew the surname of my immigrant fourth great grandmother who emigrated to the United States in 1852 with her husband Frederick Gerbing and their 5 children. She was just known as Martha. A couple years ago I found the baptismal records of her children from Vieselbach, Germany. And viola, her surname was Nicolai and the records said she was born in the farming village of Niederzimmern! During the pandemic I broke through some more and now we have back to her grandmother! Her mother was also born in Niederzimmern. According to de.wikipedia.org, Niederzimmern is known for this watchtower that was built in the mid 1300s.

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In honor of Mother’s Day, we have back, direct, in the female line, 8 generations. For the younger generation, that is 9 generations.

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The red arrows signify the immigrants. Mother and daughter. The Gerbing family sailed to the New World in 1852 on the Anna Katharina from Hamburg. They disembarked at Quebec City and made their way to Chicago. Anna Louisa married Johann Schuttler.

Do you have any corrections or additions? Are we related? My email is -cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.

Women’s History Month/Immigrant #49 ~ Third Great Grandmother Louisa Anna Elisabetha Gerbing Schuttler ~ Mother of my first American born ancestor

My immigrant third great grandmother Louisa Gerbing Schuttler was born in 1836 in Vieselbach, Prussia and came to the United States in 1852 with her immediate family at the age of 16.  She is the mother of my first American born ancestor.

Louisa Anna Elisabetha Gerbing was born to Martha Nicolai from Niederzimmern and Johann Friedrich Gerbing from Vieselbach.  As my previous post on her parents mentions, her father was a mason by trade.  She was their third oldest child and oldest daughter.

In 1852 she left Hamburg for Quebec City, Quebec in a voyage that would take approximately three months.

The following siblings came with Louisa:

Franz (Frank) Gerbing

Christian Gerbing

Dorothea (Dora) Gerbing 

Mary Gerbing  

On December 4, 1853, Louisa married another German immigrant – my third great grandfather Johann Schuttler – in St. Paul’s First Lutheran Church in Chicago.  The minister that performed their wedding ceremony was Reverend Wunder.  In case you are wondering why the year of birth on her marriage record is not 1836, and for more about their marriage record, please see my previous post  Today’s Anniversary ~ Third Great Grandparents Louisa Gerbing and Johann Schuttler ~.

Nine months later, Louisa had her first child – Christine Catharina (Katy) Schuttler (my ancestress), 1854-1915.  She married immigrant Frederick “Fritz” Eckebrecht.

The rest of her children are as follows:

Karl Wilhelm (Charles) Schuttler, 1856-1896; married Delia Bolton

Elisabetha (Louise) Maria Schuttler, 1858-1922; married Edward Fuller

Loretta Schuttler, 1863-1864

In September 1864, Loretta and Louisa contracted cholera during an outbreak in Chicago.  My third great grandmother lost Loretta on September 9th.  Two days later, Louisa also passed.  She was only 28 years old.  My second great grandmother was only 10.

To bury his wife and 1 year old daughter, my third great grandfather Johann bought what I call “The Schuttler and descendants burial plot” in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago.  Through the suggestion of another researcher, I ordered a copy of the Schuttler cemetery file and was lucky enough to find an affidavit verifying a graph of Johann’s descendants drawn out in the early 1900s inside the file.  (There will be more on this file and my struggle searching for the parents of Johann Schuttler of Peter Schuttler Wagon Company in the next 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge “Brick Wall.”)

Louisa counts the following individuals among her descendants:

• Her daughter Louise Fuller is buried in historic Congressional Cemetery – National Burial Ground on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
• Her great grandson Colonel Gerard M. Leies is buried in Arlington National Cemetery
• Her great great grandson (through her son Charles Schuttler) was Sergeant Glenn Charles Stromback and is on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Panel 46W, Line 24.  He was a Purple Heart Recipient.  See: His Memorial Page

Please contact me if I have missed someone!  I obviously haven’t found all of her descendants.

The photo below is a picture of my second great grandmother Katy Schuttler.  It was said she had red hair.  I wonder if she took after her mother.

Sources:

Hamburg Passenger Lists

Vieselbach, Germany Lutheran Church Records

St. Paul’s First Lutheran Church Records

1860 Federal Census

Graceland Cemetery’s file

Find-a-Grave

-cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net

Immigrant #48: Franz Heironimus Emil Gerbing or Frank Gerbing, Chicago Police Sergeant and Mason (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – #9 At the Courthouse)

Immigrant Frank Gerbing was born in 1831 Vieselbach, Germany to my fourth great grandparents Friedrich Gerbing and Martha Nicolai.  He was their oldest child and the oldest sibling of my third great grandmother Louisa Gerbing.  The Gerbing family left Germany in 1852.  I do not know the date of entry of any of the Gerbings into the United States because they sailed to the port of Quebec City.

This week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge is At the Courthouse.  I had a lot of options with this prompt!  I decided upon Frank Gerbing.

The first record for Frank in the United States I could locate was for his marriage at St. Paul’s First Lutheran Church of Chicago.  These church records were saved by Reverend Wunder from the Chicago Fire, put on microfilm, and are now online at Family Search.  On January 1, 1856, Frank married Eva Elisabetha Schuttler, daughter of Martin and Anna Katharina.  She was born in Brenzbach, Hesse Darmstadt, Germany.

Frank’s sister, Louisa, my aforementioned third great grandmother, had married German immigrant Johann Schuttler in 1853 in Chicago in the same church.  Johann was born in Wachenheim, about 20 miles from Brenzbach.  Are Johann and Eva Elisabetha related?  How are they related? 

Frank and his wife Elizabeth had 5 children-

Frederick, b. 1856, married Margaret Cronin and Anna Straus

Louis, b. 1857, married Anna Margaretha Wagner

Charles, b. 1860 and d. 1876

Dorothea (Dora) b. 1863, married Jacob Knauss

Elizabeth, b. 1866

Frank shows up in the Chicago City Directory of 1861 as a policeman.  That is when I turned to newspapers.  Frank Gerbing appears in the most newspaper articles I have ever found for anyone in my tree.  I will just touch on some of the highlights and lowlights in the Chicago newspapers.

The Chicago people in my tree were NEVER BORING.

In October 1865, he was listed as a Voting Inspector in the 14th Ward, First Precinct.  In 1867 he was appointed a Republican Committeeman.  On June 5, 1867, he was promoted to Police Sergeant.

 

The Chicago Tribune, April 21, 1875 – details of the immigrant backgrounds of officers on the Chicago Police Force

The Chicago Tribune October 4, 1877

By 1877 Frank Gerbing was Lieutenant of the Lake Street Squad.  While there, he and other members of his squad, according to newspaper articles, were accused of being intoxicated while on duty.   Also in 1877, he was specifically named as being the homosexual lover of one of his ex-subordinates by that ex-subordinate’s ex-wife as part of a blackmail scheme.

While the Lake Street Squad was under investigation for corruption, he was transferred to the Webster Avenue Police Station.  Then in 1879 he was intentionally made to resign from his police duties by then Democratic Mayor Harrison when he went on a firing spree of all of the Republicans on the Chicago Police Force.

In early 1880, Frank was arrested for embezzlement from the Policemen’s Benevolent Association.  Frank subsequently paid the money back and the suit was dropped.  Since Frank was no longer a police officer, he wasn’t on the force during the Haymarket Labor Riot like the other Chicago policemen in my tree.

Frank then worked as a mason like his father Friedrich Gerbing.  He died in 1891 and is buried in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago.  His wife passed away in 1901.

If Frank was my direct ancestor, I believe I would never be able to stop researching his life on the Chicago police force!

Frank’s grandson, Francis J. Knauss (a son of Dora and Jacob Knauss), was born in Chicago, and was a lawyer in Colorado who rose to be the Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court.

Frank and his grandson were likely at the courthouse many times.

Sources:

Cousin Frank Eckebrecht’s research

Uncle John’s research

Vieselbach, Germany Church Records

Hamburg Passenger Lists

Chicago City Directories

St. Paul’s First Lutheran Church Records

United States Federal Censuses

Brensbach, Germany Church Records

Chicago birth, marriage, and death indexes

Newspapers.com

Chicago, Illinois Voter Registration Records

Denver City Directories

World War I and II Draft Registration Cards

U.S. Social Security Death Index

Lieutenant Frank Gerbing on Google

Francis J. Knauss on Google

-cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net

Next: Women’s History Month and the ABCs of My Genealogy Year 2

 

 

 

Immigrants #41 – 42 ~ Martha Nicolai and Johann Friedrich Gerbing, a Mason and descendant of a Prussian Army Soldier ~

On May 1, 1852, my immigrant fourth great grandparents Martha Nicolai and Johann Friedrich Gerbing sailed from Hamburg, Germany for Quebec City, Quebec with their 5 children on a journey that would have taken approximately three months.  Their city of origin was Vieselbach, Germany (outside of Erfurt).  By the early fall of 1853, they were residing in Chicago, Illinois.

Up until a few months ago, my fourth great grandmother Martha Nicolai was just a shadow on my family tree.  I was not even sure her first name was Martha.  But when a small amount of church records from Vieselbach were mixed in with the Erfurt church records and put on Ancestry.com, she became nameless no more.  Wonderfully, the baptisms of her children even contained her town of origin.

Dorothea Gerbing’s was the first baptismal record I found.  I knew I had the right person when the birthdate matched the birthdate we had in America for Dorothea Gerbing.

The first column is Dorothea’s birthday.

The second is her baptismal date.

The third is her full baptismal name: Dorothea Elisabetha Mathilde.

The fourth is the father: Johann Friedrich Gorbing.  Did you notice it is Gorbing?  In Vieselbach it fluctuated between Gorbing and Gerbing in the records.

The last column above is the mutter: Martha geb. Nicolai aus Niederzimmern!

My fourth great grandmother Martha Nicolai was from Niederzimmern!  It is about one mile from Vieselbach.  Sadly, I do not know the names of her parents.

Johann Friedrich Gerbing was born in 1807, according to the Graceland Cemetery record of his burial.  There is a possibility he was born in Vieselbach.  But, Peter Heckert’s website in Germany contains “Zur Chronik der Kirchgemeinde Vieselbach” detailing the church records of Vieselbach.  It specifically contains the surnames listed in the book before 1800.  There are no Gerbings or Gorbings.

On the 1836 baptismal record of my third great grandmother Louisa Gerbing, Friedrich’s occupation was journeyman bricklayer/mason of Vieselbach.  The occupation of bricklayer was also on the Hamburg ship manifest.  See this post: On This Day in 1852…

I suspect Johann Friedrich’s parents were Johann Christoph Gerbing and Anna Martha Engelbrecht.  Johann Christoph was a daylaborer.

According to “Zur Chronik der Kirchgemeinde Vieselbach,” there are many Engelbrecht’s living in Vieselbach before and after 1800.  It also recorded that Anna Martha Engelbrecht left Vieselbach’s Lutheran school in 1796 and received a hymnal.  Engel means angel in German…

A wonderful genealogy angel retrieved Anna Martha’s baptism from the Vieselbach records available at Family Search to members of the LDS.  Her parents were Johann Andreas Engelbrecht and her mother was from Obernissa and named Barbara Magdalena Korner.

Without the retrieval of that record for me, I’d likely still be stuck at Johann Friedrich and I would not have located an incredibly interesting church record in the Vieselbach records available on Ancestry.com.  The Lutheran marriage record of Anna Martha’s parents Johann Andreas and Barbara Magdalena from 1780, stated that, Anna Martha’s grandfather Heinrich Wilhelm Korner (my 7th great grandfather), was a Corporal in the Prussian Army, in the service of the Prince-Electorate of Mainz.  This meant he served in the powerful army of King Frederick the Great of Prussia.  Please note the surname Korner contains an umlaut over the o.  The Prince-Electorate of Mainz was a Catholic Bishop and in 1780 was Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal.  Anna Martha’s parents were marrying in the Lutheran Church.

 

Friedrich and Martha in the United States

Little is known of Friedrich once he was in the United States.  The spouse of a descendant of Martha and Friedrich’s son Christian Gerbing shared the Family Burial Card from a Graceland Cemetery file on Ancestry.com.  It shows that Fred Gerbing (Friederich) was deceased on March 11, 1858 and was buried in Christian’s plot on July 20, 1865.  Thank you KStockmar46!  

Why the delay in years of placing Friedrich in the plot?  Your guess is as good as mine.  Apparently though, Friedrich was moved into the plot the same day as an infant child named Christian Gerbing, deceased in 1857, and an infant child named George Joseph? Lincoln Gerbing.  Immigrants Christian Gerbing and wife Anna Bauer, named their infant after the assassinated President of the United States, who was shot and killed in April of that year.  Perhaps Patriotism was also on their minds when they also named him George.

Sadly, nothing else is known about my immigrant 4th great grandfather Friedrich Gerbing in America right now!  

Likewise, little is known about Martha in the United States beyond the fact that she was widowed and living with her youngest daughter Maria (Mary) in 1860.  The census taker wrote their surname down as “Garvin.” Wow that’s a new one.  The records of Graceland cemetery (where the Schuttlers of my family are also buried) list that she was deceased on August 2, 1869.  That makes two records in America that mention my immigrant fourth great grandmother Martha Nicolai.

The following children of Martha and Friedrich came with them to the United States (with their full baptismal names):

Franz Heironimus Emil, emigrated at age 20 (Frank) m. Elizabeth Schuettler

Christian Georg Istoph Edward, emigrated at age 18 (Christian) m. Anna Bauer

Louisa Anna Elisabetha, emigrated at age 15 (Louisa) m. Johann Schuttler – my ancestors

Dorothea Elisabetha Mathilde, emigrated at age 13 (Dorothea) m. John Schieferstein

Maria Ernestina, emigrated at age 6 (Maria) m. Louis Weick

Martha and Friedrich had a son in 1843 named Karl Wilhelm.  He only lived 7 days and was buried in Vieselbach.

I have been slowly tracing the lives of their children and trying to place the numerous descendants of all of Friedrich’s and Martha’s children so the siblings of my ancestress Louisa Gerbing can be memorialized here in the future.  I think Franz is my favorite so far.  There is no other person in my family tree mentioned in that many newspaper articles in Chicago.  He was a police sergeant and his grandson sat on the Colorado Supreme Court.  

Sources: 

Hamburg Passenger Lists

Vieselbach, Erfurt, Thuringia Lutheran Church Records at Ancestry.com

“Zur Chronik der Kirchgemeinde Vieselbach” via Peter Heckert

Wikipedia

1860 United States Federal Census

Records of St. Paul’s First Lutheran Church from Chicago via Newberry Public Library and Family Search

Johann Schuttler’s Graceland Cemetery File

KStockmar46 at Ancestry.com (Christian Gerbing’s Graceland Cemetery File)

A Ravelry Knitting Genealogist (the genealogy angel)

Find-a-Grave

Newspapers.com

cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

On This Day in 1852…

On this day in 1852, my 16 year old great great great grandmother Louisa Gerbing departed from Hamburg, Germany for Quebec City, Canada with her parents Friedrich and Marta, and her 4 siblings Franz-19, Christian-17, Dorothea-12, and Maria-7 on the ship the Anna Catharina, piloted by Captain Gehm.  Friedrich’s occupation was maurer or mason.  According to the manifest, his place of birth was Vieselbach, Preussen.  It is a tiny town outside of Erfurt.

 

Hamburg Passenger List

 

It was cheaper for them to take a ship to Canada and the trip would have lasted around 90 days.

The final destination of the family was Chicago.

 

~~cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net