Today this challenge is a toughie. I do not possess any land or property records for anyone in my direct lines. I have transcribed descriptions of land transfers my French and German ancestors made in the early 1700s near Rodalben, Germany. They are not the actual records. In collateral lines I have land records, but not in my direct lines. So I am sharing a copier-made image of my immigrant second great grandfather Fritz Eckebrecht’s business card from the era he owned a butcher shop in Chicago. There is family speculation that this butcher shop property was owned with his brother Wilhelm and that is was built by Wilhelm, Fritz, and their father Quirinus Eckebrecht, who was mentioned on Day 10 of this challenge. I do not have the date of this business card. On the 1880 Census, Fritz’s occupation was listed as butcher.
Do you have any corrections, additions, or are we related? My email is cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.
Today I share the 1870 census record of my immigrant third great grandparents Quirinus Eckebrecht and Marie Louise Koppel. They had been in America for 4 years and were living in Chicago at this time. This was the year before the Great Fire. Quirinus was working as a laborer. Note that on this record, that he and his wife and sons Charles, Henry, and Edward are all recorded as literate. We know this, as my second great grandfather, their son Fritz, kept a diary of his life, and that was likely started in his teenage years. Marie Louise’s father owned mill properties in her village. The census taker called their birthplace Saxony. It was Thuringia, Germany.
Do you have any additions, or comments? Are you too descended from Quirinus and Marie Louise? I would love to hear from you! Please email me – cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.
Today I share plot and burial information from the John Schuttler owned plot in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago. John bought the plot in 1864 to bury his first wife, and my ancestor, Louisa Gerbing Schuttler, and his infant daughter Loretta. John was my first American ancestor, who emigrated in 1849 from Germany.
Do we share ancestry? Do you have any comments? Do you want to swap photos? I would love to hear from you! Feel free to email me – cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.
Today I share the death record of my immigrant second great grandfather Louis F. Kirsch. He was born in Hannover, Germany in 1862. The record lists his father as William. For the longest time I have tried to find William living anywhere in the United States. Does anyone related to me reading this know anything about what happened to the parents of Louis? Anyways, here is the death record of Louis F. Kirsch from Cook County, Illinois. His occupation, as you can see was chef. His cause of death is also listed, as well as a contributory cause.
Greetings! Because of the current world-wide pandemic, and an obvious increase in free time, I’ve been looking back at my tree to find those that were affected by past life-threatening outbreaks. There are many, of all ages, who can be mentioned.
When Chicago was still growing in the 1860s, my immigrant third great grandmother Louisa (Elisabetha Anna) Gerbing Schuttler lost her life during the cholera epidemic after losing her young daughter. Last March I did a brief write-up on her life and those of her descendants, mentioning the epidemic –
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.
A few years before my Great Uncle John passed away, he memorialized the life and times of his grandfather Fritz Eckebrecht who was born in Germany, crossed the ocean in his teens, traversed the Post-War South picking crops, and spent time living among the Comanches in Texas before he settled in Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871. He is the one true adventurer of the family.
In honor of his adventures, and what is likely near the anniversary of the date Fritz rode a train north to make his way to Chicago to work as a carpenter after the Great Fire, I am re-blogging a previous post containing the story written by my Great Uncle Father John G. Leies.
This week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks theme is Sister. For this theme, I am focusing on my 3 times great grandmother Louisa Gerbing Schuttler’s immigrant sisters Dora and Marie.
Marie was the youngest daughter of Martha Nicolai and Johann Friedrich Gerbing. She was born in Vieselbach, Germany in 1846 and baptized as Maria Ernestina. When she was just 5 years old, she came to the United States with the rest of her family to settle in Chicago. At the age of 10, her father passed away. I found Marie on the 1860 Census in Chicago living with her mother Martha. The census taker did not record a profession for either of them. Martha passed away in 1869.
On the 1870 and 1880 censuses for Chicago, Marie was living with her sister Dora and her brother-in-law Johann Schieferstien, and was working as a dressmaker.
In 1896, Marie married German immigrant Louis Eberhardt Weick, a widower, and a building contractor, who was in 1866, the secretary of Chicago’s German Masons and Bricklayers Aid Society. Louis was born in Wurttemberg, Germany in 1832. Unfortunately, I have not found the names of his parents.
I located a newspaper article stating Louis was in charge of the 48 bricklayers that were commissioned to build Chicago’s federal building in 1876. Marie was a stepmother to his youngest son, Walter Phillip Weick, who was the son of Louis’s first wife Catharine Miller. Marie left no biological descendants. She passed away in 1922 and is buried in Graceland Cemetery. Louis passed away in 1926, while Walter, who had worked in his father’s contracting business, passed away in 1947.
Dora was born in 1839 in Vieselbach, Germany and was baptized Dorothea Elisabetha Mathilde. When she was 14 she came to the United States with the rest of her family. Around 1866, she married German immigrant and shoemaker Johann Schieferstien. Johann was the son of Franz and Elisabetha. Dora and Johann have many descendants today. The following are their children:
Mary (1867-1899) unmarried;
Emma (1869-1884) died at age 14;
Anna (1871-1899), married the son of German immigrants Otto Matthei and had two sons named Richard and Theodore;
Amanda (1873-1935), married Charles Washington Blackwell and they had a son and daughter, who both recently passed on (and for that reason I withhold their names);
John Walter (1876-1951), a traveling salesman, married Helen Belle Morris. They had two children named Louis Elmer and Walter and divorced. John Walter’s children took the surname of Helen’s second husband Sigmund Mayer;
Fredericka (Freida) Louise (1879-1957), married German immigrant Johann Carl Martin. They had 5 children. Her husband worked at a furniture store. Freida and Johann seemed to separate at some point. On the 1920, 1930, and 1940 censuses for Tacoma, Washington, she was listed as a Pastor of the Apostolic Church, while Johann was working at a furniture store in California. I know there is an obituary somewhere for her. Unfortunately I cannot find it on newspapers.com!
Garfield (1881-1932), married Mildred Brinckerhoff and had one daughter named Dorothy after Garfield’s mother. He was a machinist at one point in his career. A newspaper article from 1932 stated Garfield was found dead with a note that he had taken his life to escape alimony payments to his wife.
Dora’s husband passed away in 1889 in Chicago. She passed away in 1899. A voided probate record on Ancestry.com listed the estates of Dora and her daughter Anna together. I wonder why. How I wish I would have found obituaries for the sisters of my 3 times great grandmother Marie and Dora.
Do you have any additions, corrections, questions about my sources, or comments? Please email me – cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net
My immigrant third great grand uncle Christian Gerbing was born in 1834 in Vieselbach, Germany to Martha Nicolai and Johann Friedrich Gerbing and emigrated to the United States in 1852 with the rest of his immediate family at the age of 18. He was the second oldest brother of my 3rd great grandmother Louisa Anna Elisabetha Gerbing Schuttler.
When Christian was born, his namesake was his paternal grandfather, my 5th great grandfather, Johann Christoph Gerbing. Johann Christoph was a laborer living in Vieselbach around 1800. At his baptism, Christian’s full name was recorded as Georg Istoph Eduard Gerbing. His father’s occupation at that time was listed as bricklayer. After finding this record, I wondered if his name was Americanized to Christian.
Christian’s baptismal record from Vieselbach
The first record I found for Christian in the United States was when he was listed as the godfather of my 3rd great grandmother, Christine Katharina Schuttler at her baptism in 1854. She was his niece – the child of his sister Louisa Gerbing Schuttler. This record was from St. Paul’s First Lutheran Church of Chicago.
The next record I found related to Christian in the United States was the baptism of his nephew, Louisa’s son, Charles (Karl Wilhelm) Schuttler in 1856. I know now that Christian’s sister-in-law Katherine Bauer was listed as his godmother. This record was also from St. Paul’s. This indicates that Christian was likely already married to German immigrant Anna Bauer, at the date of the baptism, December 25, 1856. Can anyone else researching this family confirm this? Anna was the daughter of Sebatian Bauer and a lady named Anna Elisabetha.
The third record I found for Christian in Chicago was the baptism of his eldest daughter EmmaGerbing in the St. Paul’s First Lutheran Church of Chicago records from 1859.
Emma’s baptism
On the 1860 Federal Census, Christian and Anna were living with the Bauers and Christian was working as cabinetmaker. Subsequent censuses and Chicago City Directories all list Christian’s occupation as carpenter or cabinetmaker.
One of those Chicago City Directories bears mention. The 1861 Chicago City Directory entry for Christian Gerbing showed that he was working as a carpenter at Peter Schuttler Wagons. This means he was likely making artillery and supply wagons for the Grand Army of the Republic along with Louisa’s husband, his brother-in-law, immigrant Johann Schuttler.
Christian and Anna Bauer had 16 children all born in Chicago. 11 of those children survived to adulthood and they each had families of their own, making the research of Christian’s descendants a huge task!
They are as follows – in order of birth:
Christian b. September 1, 1857, d. September 1, 1857
Emma b. 1859, d. 1924, married German immigrant Carl Findeisen
Amelia b. 1861, d. 1893, married German immigrant Maximillian Stockmar
Ida, b. 1862, d. 1947, married William Kriegsmann and German immigrant Joseph Spanheimer
Anna, b. 1863, d. 1935, married Frank Wedell and according to her obituary a Mr. Lester.
George Lincoln, b. April 1865, died July 18, 1865
John, b. 1866, d. 1934, married Josephine Cote (daughter of French-Canadian immigrants)
Clara, b. 1867, d. 1868
Clara, b. 1868, d. 1938, married James Alexander Thomlinson (son of Canadian immigrants)
Hattie Marie, b. 1871, d. 1951, married William Gluek and Jacob Dietz
Maria, b. 1874, d. 1880
Charles, b. 1875, d. 1933, married Amanda Krick (daughter of German immigrants)
Laura, b. 1878, d. 1944, married Herman Sieger
Edward Carl, b. 1880, d. 1937, married Lillian Haberkamp
Baby Gerbing, stillborn, April 23, 1882
Frank Peter, b. 1883, d. 1950, married Hattie Siebold (daughter of Austrian and German immigrants)
Thank you researcher KStockmar for adding and sharing the Graceland Cemetery plot card to Ancestry that contained most of these vital facts!
I could not locate the 1870 or 1910 Censuses for Christian. That fact could be caused by an indexing or transcription issue at Ancestry.com like I’ve encountered in the past.
Interestingly, in 1880, Christian’s and Anna’s daughters Amelia and Clara were recorded in two different census entries in Chicago. The first – living with their parents, and the other – living with their grandmother Bauer and uncle Sebastian Bauer, named Sebastian after his father. Now if you look at the date of death of one of their siblings(Maria), you can see they lost a sister that year. Does that have something to do with it?
I did find one mention of Christian on newspapers.com. In 1874, he sued Charles Matthai for trespass for damages of $2,000.00. I do not know the outcome of that matter.
One of the last records I found for Christian was his 1890 Voter Registration. It reflects that he became a citizen of the United States on October 2, 1956 in Cook County Courthouse. Also, he was the 18th person to vote in his precinct that year.
Christian died in 1911 at age 77 and is buried in Graceland Cemetery. I encountered trouble while digging around for his death notice or an obituary in the English language newspapers. I found neither. His wife Anna passed away at the age of 83 in 1922.
Christian is related to me through my 100% German-American grandmother. He was the brother of her immigrant great grandmother Louisa Gerbing Schuttler.
Do you have any comments, corrections, or additions? Do you have questions about my sources? I would love to hear from you – cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.
This is Part I of Namesake. I have a paternal Namesake entry for later this week.
This week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge is AtWorship. This is my fourth week of visiting my brick wall third great grandfather Johann Schuttler, and unless the wall crumbles, it might the last time I visit him during the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge.
I feel like I have exhausted every place to look for clues on Johann except while he was at worship here, and potentially in Germany. Here in the states, a place to look for hints about Johann Schuttler are the German church records from Chicago’s St. Paul’s First Lutheran Church that were saved from the Chicago Fire.
As previously mentioned this month, the first record I found was from December 4, 1853. Johann was marrying my third great grandmother Louisa Gerbing.
The second record I found was from October 8, 1854, when my second great grandmother Christine Katharina Schuttler was baptized by Reverend Wunder. Her godparents were her uncle Christian Gerbing, and a woman named Katharina Rupp. To date, I have not been able to determine who this Katharina Rupp is living in Chicago. Perhaps she wasn’t living in Chicago at all? Is she related to the Rupp that married the oldest brother of Peter Schuttler – Johann Konrad Schuttler?
The last record with clues comes from Johann’s first born son Charles Schuttler when he was baptized Karl Wilhelm on Christmas day in 1856. His godparents, listed in order they were written by Reverend Wunder: Wilhelm Schuttler, Karl Schuttler, Katherine Bauer, Dorothea Gerbing.
To the best I can tell from digging around in Chicago censuses and city directories, Wilhelm Schuttler is William David Schuttler, a Chicago bookkeeper born about 1834 in New York, USA. He married English immigrant Amelia Cook. William David Schuttler appears to have great great grandchildren alive today. William died in 1872 in Chicago.
Karl Schuttler is Corporal Charles Schuettler, born in 1836 in Mannheim, Germany, the verified nephew of Peter Schuttler I mentioned last week. He served in the Union Army from 1861-1865. He also worked as a foreman for Peter Schuttler like my Johann did. Charles died in a Soldiers’ Home in Chicago in 1905. He married another German immigrant Mary Wilhartitz and they had three children together. While he had a stepdaughter named Emma who has a plethora of descendants alive today, Charles Schuettler’s biological descendants died without children. The last passed away in the 1990s. I will find NO DNA matches there unfortunately.
I searched for Katherina Bauer in the Chicago records and have no idea how she is related to my family or if she is even from or living in Chicago. Is she the Katharina Rupp from my second great grandmother’s baptism?
Dorothea Gerbing is a younger sister of my third great grandmother Louisa – making her aunt to the baptized baby. Dorothea’s story is coming along with Christian’s.
So we have siblings of my third great grandmother Louisa listed as godparents. Unfortunately, I cannot prove that Johann is the sibling of either Katharina Rupp, Katharina Bauer, William David, nor Corporal Charles.
These are all the records I have been able to find for Johann’s children in St. Paul’s. I did not search to see if Johann was listed on any church records besides his immediate family’s. That is another thing to try. I think the Rupp name is of interest because we know a sibling of Peter Schuttler married a Rupp and that I match DNA with those that have ancestry with the surname Rupp from Harxheim, Germany.
So, when funds are available, maybe I will purchase a one month subscription to Archion.de to see if I can locate anything of interest in Harxheim, Germany church records.
For what it is worth, I have a hunch who Johann’s parents were, but with no proof, I will not show such in my trees on My Heritage and Ancestry.
This week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge is Out of Place. Is my third great grandfather Johann Schuttlerout of place in Wachenheim records? This is part 3 of my research on the origins of my brickwall third great grandfather Johann Schuttler.
A few years ago I wrote to Wachenheim, Alzey-Worms, Germany trying to find information on my third great grandfather. I am going to relate a little background on the family that the Mayor of Wachenheim, Dieter Heinz, sent me.
Mayor Heinz, and his son-in-law, who is a Schuttler, sent me entire family trees of the Schuttler branches of Wachenheim. None of those trees contained my third great grandfather. Further, they said they looked in the town church records and could not locate him.
Information they sent said the first Schuttler in Wachenheim came to their town around 1700 and became a town official. I translate that he was Mayor of Wachenheim but my translations of German should not be trusted! His name was Ulrich Schuttler, and he was born in Schwabisch Hall, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. His great grandson Johann Adam Schuttler married Maria Sybilla Reiel in Wachenheim and was the father of Peter Schuttler, Johann Schuttler’s supposed uncle.
Johann Adam Schuttler and Maria Sybilla Reiel would be the grandparents of Johann Schuttler, should I ever find a record in Germany to verify he is the biological nephew of Peter Schuttler.
These are the children of Johann Adam Schuttler, and Maria Sybilla Reiel born in Wachenheim, according to the data from Dieter Heinz:
Johann Konrad Schuttler, brickmaker, b. April 21, 1793, m. Katharina Wohlgemuth in 1819. Katharina’s mother was a Rupp.* Katharina died May 10, 1829. He marries Susanna Rupp* from Harxheim on December 9, 1829. She dies April 20, 1841 and he remarries Margaret Mannchen December 8, 1842. He has at least six children from all three women.
Friedrich Schuttler, b. March 14, 1795, m. Maria Barbara Petri in 1826 in Mannheim. I researched them. They had at least 5 children starting in 1827. They both die in Mannheim, Baden-Wurttemberg.** I found more on one of their children. Their son Carl (Charles)*** was born in 1836 in Mannheim, came to America in 1855, enlisted in the Union Army in July, 1861, served with the rank of Corporal and as a wagonmaker, worked as a foreman with my ancestor Johann at Peter Schuttler Wagons, and died in a Chicago Soldiers and Sailors Home in 1905.
Charles is a nephew of Peter Schuttler and he is a foreman at his company.
Johann Adam Schuttler, b. March 2, 1797 and dies in 1801.
Johann Schuttler, b. March 19, 1799, brickmaker, marries Anna Maria Schmidt in 1833 in Wachenheim. They have at least one daughter born in 1835.
Dieter Schuttler, b. in 1803, died in 1803.
Christian Schuttler, b. ? 1806, unknown.
Katharina Schuttler, b. ? 1808, died? possibly in America.
Anna Margaretha Schuttler, b. November 4, 1810, m. Peter Huber in 1834.
Peter Schuttler, b. 1812, m. Dorothy Gauch in America.
Where does Johann Schuttler, born September 26, 1829 in Wachenheim fit?
I wonder if Johann Schuttler was baptized in a nearby town…
Or, was he illegitimate and his mother was a unmarried sister of Peter Schuttler…
So I also got to thinking too, if the totality of the research from Wachenheim on the Schuttler branches had at one point been carried out on those Schuttlers who actually married and stayed in Germany. Obviously my Johann Schuttler did not. Nor did Corporal Charles Schuettler. I located his parentage on my own.
* From last week’s post on DNA it is has been determined that I match individuals from Harxheim with the surname Rupp.
I also wonder if I was given an incorrect death date on the first wife of Johann Konrad Schuttler since his first wife Katharina’s mother had the surname Rupp. Is that possible? Is it possible she died later after she gave birth to my Johann in September?
** I share matches with a whole page of individuals on Ancestry with Mannheim ancestry. To the best of my knowledge this far, I do not have Mannheim ancestry. However, I cannot determine if the matches are because Mannheim is not very far from the Rheinpfalz, the birth place of my German-American grandmother’s grandparents. Or do I really just have Mannheim ancestry?
***More on Corporal Charles Schuttler/Schuettler in next week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge At Worship because he shares more than one connection to my third great grandfather.
Coincidentally, I can’t help but notice that Maria Sybilla Reiel had children on birthdates shared with members of my family.
Cinziarosa's Descendants (c) 