Today in Family History

November 9

Today in Family History ~

In 1700 – my 6th great grandparents Jakob Johann Wenceslaus Leyies-Trauden and Anna Ottilia Schwartz were married in the Reformed Church of Contwig, Southwestern Germany, near the border with Lorraine.  These were ancestors of my grandmother Leies.  In this time period, the Leies surname was Trauden Leyies/Layies Trauden and recorded in church records as Lais, Leis, Loys, Trauden, Trauten, Traudi, Trauti, Traut, Leys, etc.  Genealogists have speculated that Trauden was a mother’s surname at one point.  But nobody really knows.  Jakob was the son of Wenceslaus (Wentz) Trauden Leyies and a woman whose name is unknown. 

After the Thirty Years War, Wenceslaus Trauden Leyies and his family were among the first 5 immigrant families to settle in the district of Oberhausen.  Wenceslaus came in 1686 and purchased 1 and 1/2 lots of land in 1706.  Each lot consisted of 14 acres of meadows, 3 acres of gardens, and 30 acres of manure fields. The primary source of livelihood for the inhabitants of Oberhausen was agriculture.  (The information on their land was received from the Leyes family with whom we share ancestry.  Their ancestor Michael moved to another village and the surname was spelled Leyes.  Our ancestors moved to Nuenschweiler and it began to be spelled Leies.)

The only clue about their origin is the fact that Wenceslaus’s son Anton went by the nickname Donges and Donges is used in the High German language – one can look to see where that language was spoken at that time period.  Lorraine spoke a German dialect, by the way.    

Anna Ottilia Schwartz was born in the area of Oberhausen and her father Hans Adam was the local Gerichtsschoffe which is like a sheriff.  We only know that her mother’s name was Magdalena.  They too were members of the Reformed Church. 

In 1717 – My 7th great grandparents Anna Apollonia Ziehl and Jean Michel Conrad were married in the Catholic Church of Hornbach, Germany, also near the border with Lorraine.  Anna Apollonia was the daughter of farmers Johann Christian Ziehl, a farm manager, and a lady named Anna Maria Barbara from Dietrichingen. 

Jean Michel was Hans Michael Conrad in the records at this time, but next to his name was the word Schweyen.  I discovered that it was a village in Moselle, France.  He was the first ancestor I found in my tree from France.  He was baptized Jean Michel Conrad on December 3, 1697 in Loutzviller, just over the border with Germany.  He was the son of Jean Gregor Conrad and Elisabetha Stauder.  Jean Michel’s grandfather was named Jean Stauder dit le Suisse.  “Dit le Suisse” means “known as”  Jean the Swiss. Jean Stauder was born in Volmunster, France though.  It was actually Jean dit le Suisse’s father who was born in Switzerland.  What was he doing in France? I do not know.  Jean Michel’s baptism is one of the photos attached.  He too was a farmer.  They were all ancestors of my grandmother too.

Finally, in 1881, also among these family members of my grandmother Leies, from this same area of Germany, there was a story printed in the Chicago Tribune newspaper involving her father’s immigrant uncle Ferdinand Bold, who had luckily survived the Grand Street Tenement Disaster in New York City.  His mother-in-law and brother-in-law did not survive, while his wife was severely injured.  His infant son was unscathed.

Are we related? Do you have a question about my sources or have an addition? Please email me – cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.

Today in Family History ~ The Anniversary of the Birth of Christian Gungerich – Religious Prisoner

On December 14, 1595, my ninth great grand uncle Christian Gungerich was born in Oberdiessbach, Canton Bern, Switzerland to Hans Gungerich and Anna Schindler. Christian was the brother of my 9th great grandnmother Barbara Gungerich.

Christian is notable because he was an Anabaptist teacher and was imprisoned twice for preaching, eventually dying in prison. If he was executed, I do not have that information.

Christian’s family’s surname was originally Gundrich and appeared in records as early as 1389, in Konolfingen, near Oberdiessbach. By the late 1500s there were several Gungerich families living near Oberdiessbach. In 1669, Christian had been captured and imprisoned in Schwarzenegg Prison. He managed to escape. So he was hunted again and taken to Waisenhaus Prison in Bern. Waisenhaus was a former orphanage converted into prison for Anabaptist preachers.

There is not an exact date of death for Christian. As noted above, if he was executed, I don’t have that information. By 1671 his house and lands (inherited) were seized by the government church. Because they kept a case file regarding his property that survived all of these years, and it listed the relations of Christian that came forward to claim the property, we would not know the parentage and siblings of Christian, and he would not be in my tree. He never married and, as such, had no children.

I always wondered who could have been his teacher or “converted” him since the birth of Anabaptism was approximately 70 years before his birth. I read there were several other teachers in his area of Bern already.

His mother, my 10th great grandmother Anna Schindler, shares the surname of an Andres Schindler, an Anabaptist who attended the Anabaptist Debate in Bern in 1538. He was from the area of Oberdiessbach. My theory that she and Andres could be related is just a theory.

Christian’s sister Barbara married Peter Strubel (Rubeli). Remember them? The Rubelis escaped to the German Palatinate and eventually had their farm burned down by Louis XIV when he had the Palatinate scorched. I have written several posts on that branch of the tree.

Barbara also asked after her brother’s estate in April of 1671. These are all ancestors of my Grandmother Leies.

Are we related, or do you have a correction, or addition? Please email me: cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.

Memorial Day 2022: Union Soldier Peter Leies, 1841-1862, killed at Antietam (Re-Post)

A version of this post previously appeared here in 2017.

Union Private Peter Leies was born at Huberhof, Nunschweiler, Germany in 1841 and killed in action at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862 in the single most bloodiest day in American history.  Peter is our cousin and left no wife or children.  He enlisted at age 21 in New York City in the NY 4th Infantry, Company “D.”

I found a little information about Peter in an American Civil War Research database.  I hope the link to him works for you before we hit a paywall.  The only other information I know about Peter and the war are the records I found pertaining to him on Ancestry.

The enlistment officer wrote his name as Peter Leas. His pension card had that noted as his alias.  LEIES also appears on the pension card, and with the names of his parents on the card, I knew he was the first cousin to my great great grandfather Johann Leies.  I have all of the Leies baptisms and confirmations from Nunschweiler, Germany in a file.  In my research experience, nobody but an actual relative of my grandmother spells their surname as L-E-I-E-S.

In 1865, his mother Louisa Knerr Leies applied for his pension after the war ended. 

In 1874, his father then applied for the pension, probably after his mother passed.

I found Peter quite by accident.  I was chasing down the Leies relatives of Grandma in NYC and trying to prove Peter’s brother Jacob Leies enlisted in the Union Army.  I wasn’t looking for Peter until I found his parents listed on his pension card.  We have long known we had no direct ancestors in the United States Civil War.

I wonder now what possessed the ethnic Germans to enlist in the Civil War and desire to learn more about the Battle of Antietam.  I found a reference to Peter’s Company “D” on another Civil War page saying it was formed with the intent of being a solely German company.  I know that didn’t work out because there is a shamrock on the monument to his regiment at Antietam.  Follow this link to the memorial.

According to the 1855 NY State Census, Peter and his brother Jacob had been living in NYC since 1852.  I found a Jacob Leies enlisting in the NY 159th in 1862.  The problem is that on that enlistment record Jacob has his birthplace listed as Brooklyn.  I have Jacob’s baptismal record from Nunschweiler.  So I wonder if they put Brooklyn on the record if Jacob no longer had the German accent.  I will have to research Jacob some more.  He is the one that led me to Peter.

12 Months of My Family Tree in Print – July

This month features a piece of ephemera from Bronx, New York, a marriage announcement from Wooster, Ohio, a grim reminder of the worst American air pollution disaster in history, and the announcement of the dissolution of a social club outside of Philadelphia.

The July 3, 1895 marriage of my great grandparents Alexander Leies and Caroline Eckebrecht was announced in the Wooster Daily Record during the second week of July in 1895.  Unfortunately, I do not know the date this was printed in the publication.  They were married in Canton, Ohio.

Wooster Daily Record, second week of July, 1895

On July 14, 1977, my immigrant great uncle Albert’s name appeared in the legal section of the Delaware County Times.  He was the Secretary of the American-Italian Social Club of Upper Chichester Township that was voluntarily dissolving.

The Delaware County Times, July 14, 1977

We have a program saved from my immigrant great grandfather Carmen Ferraro.  He was taking part in a “patriotic rally” to be held at O’Hara’s Hall in Bedford Park on July 23, 2917.  This is the only surviving page of the program.

On July 31, 1970, our illustrious cousin once removed Dr. Antonio Ciocco was mentioned in the Connellsville Daily Courier on the anniversary of the release of a report regarding the worst air pollution tragedy in American history, the Donora Smog.  Antonio and other members of the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health studied the causes of the tragedy.  Clean air movements followed the tragedy, and eventually, the Clean Air Act of 1963 was enacted.  Antonio was my great grandfather Carmen Ferraro’s nephew.

Connellsville Daily Courier, July 21, 1970.  

 

Sadly, the current administration has gutted the act and used the current pandemic and race war as a distraction to further weaken air pollution rules.  

Do you have any questions, corrections, or additions?  Are we related?   Email me: cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.  

12 Months of My Family Tree in Print – June

This month, the following news bits relate to my family in the old papers:

On June 5, 1924, my immigrant great grandfather Carmen (Carmine) Ferraro appeared in what may be a Brooklyn English-language newspaper.  The name of the paper has crumbled off with age.  Carmen, as general manager and artistic director of the National Grand Opera Association, Inc., conducted a performance of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor.

Carmen’s “international” travel bureau was advertised in The Chicago Tribune on June 22, 1930.

My immigrant great great grandfather Johann (John) Leies appeared in the marriage license announcements section of The Chicago Tribune on June 23, 1896 when he obtained a license to marry his second wife, Caroline Sickel, after my immigrant great great grandmother Emilia Bold had passed.  Their ages are listed in the column to the right.

On June 28, 1910, my immigrant great great grandfather Angelo Ferraro’s name appeared as an incorporator in The Chicago Tribune with his son-in-law Angelo Scarnecchia and Arturo Cinquini.  I am not familiar with Arturo or his relationship to my family.  That is something to research.  If I found out anything I will let you know!

Their new corporation was named The Italo-American Forwarding Company and would apparently deal in insurance and brokerage.  Does this mean Angelo was living in Chicago?  Maybe.  I cannot locate him on the 1910 Census.  At this time his son Carmen’s profession was listed as fruit broker on the 1910 census and was fruit merchant on his 1910 Naturalization application.

Do you have any corrections, comments, or additions?  Are we related?  I would love to hear from you!  Please email me: cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.   

 

12 Months of My Family Tree in Print – February

This month the following news items are featured in my family tree:

• On February 13, 1915, the burial notice of my second great grandmother Katharina Schuttler Eckebrecht was in Chicago’s German language newspaper The Abenpost on page 4.  She was to be buried in Montrose Cemetery with Fred Schmidt’s funeral home handling the burial.

• On February 14, 1953, Antonio Ciocco appeared on page 8 of The Cincinnati Inquirer, while he was serving as an advisory committee member to an Air Hygiene Study.  The photo caption stated he was the head of the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health.  Who is he to me?  He is the son of Gelsomina Ferraro Ciocco, sister of my great grandfather Carmine Ferraro.  That makes him a first cousin twice removed to the writer.  He is the gentleman seated in the bottom left corner of the photo below.  The family resemblance is definitely there.

• On today’s date in 1899, my immigrant second great grandfather Johann (John) Leies was named on page 10 of The Chicago Tribune.  His name was in print because he was being listed as a Clerk of Elections in the Twenty-First Ward, Precinct 13, for the Democratic Party.  It also listed his home address.  See for yourself below.

• Finally, on February 19, 1925, my second great grandmother’s brother Leo Heinzen, the spiritual healer, was in The Battle Creek Enquirer on page 3 because he was qualifying for a United States Citizenship ceremony.  The women listed had to file for citizenship because their spouses were born elsewhere!

Do you have more information on any of these individuals, have questions, corrections, or comments?  Please feel free to email me cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #47: Soldier ~ Colonel Gerard M. Leies ~

This week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks theme is Soldier.

I again honor Colonel Gerard Leies, one of our nation’s first nuclear physicists.

Re-post – Veteran’s Day 2017.

Theme #48 is Thief.  Do any of my relatives have a suggestion for an ancestor that falls under the theif theme?

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #26: Legend

This week’s prompt Legend is a tough one so I decided to look at legends from the places where my ancestors lived.

In Farindola, Italy, there is the legend associated with their beautiful Cascata del Vitello D’Oro which translates to “Waterfall of the Golden Calf.”

The legend goes that long ago on St. John the Baptist’s Day which falls today, June 24th, local women were collecting water and there appeared a golden calf next to the waterfall. Locals also report that they can hear the sound of the calf where the water exits the stone cliff, while others say the source of the waterfall contains actual veins of gold.

Today Farindolesi engage in dancing around a bonfire on the night of St. John the Baptist Day.

In Switzerland, in a country known for its history of witch persecutions, of which my 10 times great grandfather Heinzen was a victim, and not very far from where he was accused in Brig, Canton Valais, is the legend of the Witch of Belalp. In fact, Belalp is about 3 miles away from Brig! The tale goes that a witch and her warlock lover would transform themselves into ravens and fly to the summit of Belalp to meet in secret. One time while the witch was there conjuring spells, she saw her husband climbing a cherry tree. So she transformed herself into a raven and deposited bird droppings into his eyes when he turned to look overhead at her. This blinded him, and caused him to plunge to his death. As punishment, she was bound by the locals and sent down that summit.

Today, every year in January, Swiss skiers dress like witches to commemorate the Belalp Hexe and participate in a 12km “Witches Descent.” They say the finishing line is the exact spot her dropping-blinded husband fell to death from the cherry tree.

In Alsace-Lorraine and the Rhineland Palatinate, the places of my Leies – Bold ancestry, there are the legends of the characters associated with St. Nicholas.

Not Crampus! More like characters known in Pennsylvania as Belsnickel. In fact, the Palatinate Germans brought Belsnickel to the United States. Belsnickel is dressed in dirty clothing and comes to remind children to behave on St. Nicholas’ Day.

Finally, in the areas surrounding the Harz Mountains in Germany, where my Kirsch and Koppel ancestry (Marie Louise Koppel, the wife of Quirinus Eckebrecht) resided, there are many legends and tales associated with dwarves and goblins. Some legends are part of the folklore of Brocken Mountain, the Brocken Spectre, and the events that occur at the summit of the Brocken on May’s Eve or Walpurgisnacht.

A collection of the Harz legends were published in the 19th Century. To read English versions of a few of these tales today, visit the following link: https://www.uncommon-travel-germany.com/harz-fairy-tales.html.

Anniversary ~ Third Great Grandparents Johann Adam Layes (Leies) and Elisabetha Margaretha Pfeifer ~

On September 8, 1838, my third great grandparents Johann Adam Layes and Elisabetha Margaretha Pfeifer were married in Nuenschweiler, Germany.  They were the parents of my immigrant second great grandfather Johann Leies.

Elisabetha Margaretha Pfeiffer was born in Thaleischweiler in 1816 to Johann Pfeifer and Maria Eva Bauer.  They were farmers and were also born in Thaleischweiler, a little town closer to the French border than Nuenschweiler.  For a time after her mother’s death around 1833, Elisabetha Margaretha and her two young siblings were living with their relative Peter Bauer, in Thaleischweiler, while their father Johann Pfeifer was living in another little nearby hamlet called Reiffenberg.

 

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Why would Johann leave his children in the care of another and live in Reiffenberg?  That is a great question.

I found out about these living arrangements after using surnames and Thaleischweiler to search on Google Books.  Another relative had brought suit for the property that Peter Bauer and the minor children were living on in 1834.  Also mentioned in the suit was the fact that Elisabeth Margaretha’s mother, Maria Eva Bauer, had been a widow to her first husband, Joseph Matheis, also of Thaleischweiler.

I was able to trace the ancestry of Elisabetha Margaretha’s family to the early 1700s and late 1600s in most of her mother’s lines, and to the middle 1500s in one part of her maternal pedigree to a couple of foresters of the Palatine forest near Contwig.

Of note in her father’s ancestry is a lady born in the late 1600s – a 7th great grandmother named Anna Apollonia Moraux.  Where does Moraux sound like it came from?  France.  Perhaps she is another in the Leies ancestry of French descent.*

Johann Adam Layes was born on a farm called Huber Hof near Nuenschweiler in 1815 to Heinrich Layes and Gertruda Conrad.  Heinrich was deceased and had been a farmer.  Johann Adam was also a farmer.

Johann Adam and Elisabetha Margaretha had at least four children:

Margaretha Leis

Maria Leyes

Joseph Lays

Johann Leies (my ancestor)

They were all born at Huber Hof.

The Layes/Leyies-Trauden ancestry also traces back to Contwig.  More research needs to be performed on Elisabetha Margaretha Pfeifer’s ancestry, which I think may include intermarriage between these two families about 100 years before this 1838 union.

I used numerous spellings for Leies in this post.  I tried to stay true to the spelling of Leies in the church records of this area of the Palatinate when I located the records.  The ancestry of both parents of Johann Leies is peppered with Catholics, Protestants, and ancestors that seemed to decide on both during their lifetimes.

*Don’t forget the French ancestry of Second Great Grandmother Emilia Anna Bold Leies also from Nuenschweiler.

Sources:

• Uncle John
• Nuenschweiler, Germany Catholic Church Records
• Thaleischweiler, Germany Reformed and Catholic Church Records
• Massweiler, Germany Reformed Catholic Church Records
• Martinshohe, Germany Catholic Church Records
• Contwig, Germany Reformed and Catholic Church Records
• Amts- und Intelligenzblatt des Königlich Bayerischen Rheinkreises: 1834 via Google Books
• Chicago, Illinois death records

cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

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