From a Far Distant Time & Place: A Genealogical Study of the Ancestors & Family Jacob (Stephen) Gruben & Maria Emilie Kršmer

By Thomas Peter Glass

This book is the genealogical history of the ancestry of Jacob (Stephen) Gruben and Maria Emilie Krmer who came to the United States from Germany in the early 1880's. The book traces each of their ancestries back through German civil registration records and the earlier Catholic Church records to the 17th century. The book includes information about the first generation born in the United States. Similarly the book traces the family of Johann Gottfried (Godfrey) Nienhaus, a nephew of Jacob (Stephen) Gruben, who also came to the United States at about the same time. The book contains information on the first generation of the Nienhaus family that was born in the United States.

The book is of wider interest because there is a discussion of the nature of and idiosyncrasies of the German civil registration and Catholic records available in the Dsseldorf / Cologne area of Germany. There is an extensive discussion of a method of determining a family line when faced with the sometimes scant information available in the early Catholic Church records.

There are large numbers of collateral relatives listed in the lines of descendants contained in the book with over 1800 people listed, most of whom were born, lived and died in the Dsseldorf / Cologne area of Germany. There is a surname index to the lines of descendants in the Gruben section and a surname index to the lines of descendants in the Krmer section of the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Nov 1, 2005
• ISBN: 9781466953383

Thomas Peter Glass

Thomas Peter Glass has degrees in History, Law and Business Administration, and has a lifelong interest in history. He spent the better part of a decade researching this book on a full time basis.

Book preview

FROM A FAR DISTANT TIME & PLACE:

A Genealogical Study Of The Ancestors & Family 

Of 

Jacob (Stephen) Gruben & Maria Emilie Krämer

By

Thomas Peter Glass

©

Copyright 2005 Thomas Peter Glass.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Note for Librarians: A cataloguing record for this book is available from Library and Archives Canada at www.collectionscanada.ca/amicus/index-e.html

ISBN 1-4120-6327-2

ISBN 9-781-4669-5338-3 (ebook)

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Contents

CHAPTER ONE   INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2   BACKGROUND

THE GRUBEN SECTION

CHAPTER 3   GRUBEN, BIERNESSER & LAHNSTEIN

CHAPTER 4   SCHMITZ

CHAPTER 5   KIRSCHBAUM, ZERRES, POLHEIM & LÜTTZEN

CHAPTER 6   JOHANN GOTTFRIED (GODFREY) NIENHAUS & FAMILY

CHAPTER 7   GRUBEN SECTION LINES OF DESCENDANTS

THE KRÄMER SECTION

CHAPTER 8   KRÄMER, CASPERS AND OTTEN

CHAPTER 9   SCHLÖSSER, LODENHEID, FROLING AND DORMAN

CHAPTER 10   THE KRÄMER SECTION LINE OF DESCENDANTS

THE GRUBEN/KRÄMER SECTION

CHAPTER 11   THE FAMILY OF JACOB (STEPHEN) GRUBEN [G-4] & MARIA EMILIE KRAMER [KR-5]

CHAPTER 12   LETTERS FROM GERMANY

EPILOGUE   THE RATE OF CHANGE AND TIME

For my mother and father.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to express my thanks to the entire volunteer staff of the Latter Day Saints’ Family History Center in Peoria, Illinois for all of their help over the years. In particular I wish to thank all of the directors of the Family History Center since 1993 who really perform a full time job on a voluntary basis. In chronological order they are: Paula Mason, ClaudiaYoung, Chuck Rogers, Ed Partridge, Barbara Rowe, Vanessa Johnson, and Barbara Pasley. In addition special thanks to several members of the staff: Margaret Shurts and Dee Miller for their help and encouragement when I was just beginning my research, and Carl and Wanita Dane, who in the early years of my research were on duty for many shifts at the Family History Center and were often keeping the Family History Center open only for me.

I wish to express my thanks for the contributions of the late Dr. Ernest Ising and the late Al Kulschbach, both natives of Germany, for translating some of the letters received by Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] from relatives in Germany.

I wish to express my thanks to Leona Brugge for allowing me to photograph the discharge document from the German Army and the United States naturalization certificate of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4]. In addition I wish to thank her for providing me with her biographical sketches of the Gruben and Brugge families and allowing me to quote from them in this book. I also wish to thank her for sending me a photocopy of a page from the notebook of Anna Christina GRUBEN [G-5] which lists the names and addresses in Germany of three of the relatives of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4].

I wish to express my thanks to Leone and Don (Dutch) Nienhaus for the information that they supplied on the history of the Nienhaus family in the United States and for providing the photograph of the first generation of the Nienhaus family in America. Special thanks to Leone Nienhaus who had completed genealogical research on her side of the family and had begun work on her husband’s side of the family when I contacted her. She had answers about the first generation of the Nienhaus family in America already compiled.

I wish to express my thanks to Mrs. Roxanne Schmitt for her assistance in filling in information on the Gruben line descendants and for informing me of the procedure for contacting St. John’s Catholic Church in Joliet, Illinois to obtain summary transcripts of certain baptismal, marriage, and death records.

I wish to express my thanks to Mrs. Marianne Murphy for her assistance in filling in information on Gruben line descendants

Finally, I wish to express my thanks to my mother, Clare Belle Gruben Glass, who provided her biographical sketch of the Gruben family and allowed me to quote from it in this book. In addition she answered many questions about Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] and members of the first generation Gruben family in the United States and generally acted as a fact checker for material concerning that generation.

CODES USED FOR THE LINES OF DESCENDANTS IN THIS BOOK

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED FOR THE LINES OF DESCENDANTS & IN THE TEXT OF THIS BOOK

abt. = about

b.   = born

bef. = before

c.   = christened (baptized)

d.   = died

IGI = International Genealogical Index. A Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints microfiche and computer data base of births, baptisms and marriages from all over the world.

LDS = Latter Day Saints. LDS is a frequent abbreviation used to indicate the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as the source of genealogical services and materials, most frequently through their Family History Centers (genealogical branch libraries).

m. = marriedmp. = marriage proclamation (civil publication of intended marriage) sp = spousefi = symbol for double (s); it is not an abbreviation, but a letter symbol used in German writing and appears in the spellings of certain surnames in the lines of descendants.

CHAPTER ONE 

INTRODUCTION

Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] came to the United States from Germany in 1880 and immediately settled in Joliet, Illinois. Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5] came to the United States from Germany the next year with their four small children. This book is the story of their ancestors in Germany dating back as far as the 17th century, and the story of their family through the first generation in the United States. In addition, this book traces a nephew of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4], Johann Gottfried (Godfrey) NIENHAUS [G-5], who also came to the United States, settled near Joliet, Illinois in Troy township, then moved his family to a farm near Storm Lake, Iowa, and eventually settled on a farm near Mapleton, Minnesota. The book also follows the Nienhaus family through the first generation in the United States.

The designations G-4, Kr-5 and G-5 after the names of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4], Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5] and Johann Gottfried (Godfrey) NIENHAUS [G-5] are codes for the lines of descendants and the generations in the lines of descendants to which each belongs. The codes have three basic purposes. Take the example of the code G-4 used for Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4]: first, G-4 means the fourth generation in the Gruben line of descendants, second, knowing that makes it easier to find that person’s name listed in the Gruben line of descendants, and, third, the fact that someone is identified as coming from a particular generation in a line of descendants means that, unless there are two people with the exact same name in the same generation, you cannot confuse that person in the narrative text with some other person with the exact same name in the line of descendants. In many genealogical histories, a person is given an additional number after that person’s name to uniquely identity that person. People are clearly identified in the narrative chapters of this book so I did not find it necessary to bog down the reader trying to remember an additional number identifying each deceased person referenced in the narrative or in the lines of descendants.

Having stated that a code and generation number follows a person’s name, I will point out that there are exceptions. There are instances when I am discussing the proof of a particular ancestor in a pedigree that I first list that person, possibly with various given name and surname variations, without a code and generation number before listing the designation on which I finally settled. Other people at the earliest points in a pedigree are discussed, but never given a code or generation number, because, while I am reasonably certain that they are related to the earliest ancestors, I am not sure how they are related, or at least confident enough to list them in the pedigree and/or line of descendants.

When I reference a record in the narrative chapters or in a line of descendants, if it is a record dated prior to 1810, it is a Catholic Church record unless I explicitly indicate otherwise. When I reference a record from 1810 or later, unless I explicitly indicate otherwise, it is a civil registration record.

After the first two introductory chapters, the book is divided into three additional sections: a Gruben section, chapters three through seven, which contains information on the ancestors and some of the collateral relatives of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4], including chapter six which contains information on the Nienhaus family; a Krämer section, chapters eight through ten, which contains information on the ancestors and collateral relatives of Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5]; and a Gruben /Krämer section, chapters eleven and twelve, which contains information about the family of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] and Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5], letters which Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] received from Germany, and concludes with an epilogue.

Immediately preceding chapter one, see a listing of the lines of descendants codes as well as a list of abbreviations used in the narrative chapters of this book and in the chapters which contain the lines of descendants. For a complete explanation of how the lines of descendants are organized and the nature of the information contained therein see the explanatory notes for using the lines of descendants at the beginning of chapter seven. The explanatory notes are followed by the eight Gruben section lines of descendants, which in turn are followed by a surname index to the eight Gruben section lines of descendants. There is no general index for individuals listed in the narrative text of this book.

Seven of the lines of descendants in the Gruben section merge into one another first or directly into what is referred to as the Gruben line of descendants. If this seems confusing, study the pedigree chart of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] found at the end of the book, starting from the right instead of the left. Those people listed at the extreme right of the pedigree are the oldest ancestors listed in the pedigree. Now move toward the left, noting the line of descendants code and generation number next to an ancestor’s name, and I believe you will understand how the merger of the seven lines of descendants into one another or directly into the Gruben line of descendants occurs. The earliest listings of ancestors of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] occur in the Kirschbaum, Zerres and Polheim lines of descendants, seven generations back from Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4]. They were his great, great, great, great, great-grandparents, more simply referred to hearafter as his fifth great-grandparents.

For Nienhaus descendants, consult the pedigree of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4], but in the place of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] think Maria Tacobina Catharina GRUBEN [G-4], an older sister of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] and the mother of Johann Gottfried (Godfrey) NIENHAUS [G-5]. As brother and sister the pedigree charts of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] and Maria Jacobina Catharina GRUBEN [G-4] are exactly the same. Johann Gottfried (Godfrey) NIENHAUS [G-5] is one generation later in the Gruben line of descendants than Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4], so the earliest listings of ancestors of Johann Gottfried (Godfrey) NIENHAUS [G-5] occur in the Kirschbaum, Zerres and Polheim lines of descendants, eight generations back from Johann Gottfried (Godfrey) NIENHAUS [G-5]. They were his sixth great-grandparents.

Similarly, there are seven lines of descendants listed in the Krämer section of the book. Those lines of descendants are listed in chapter ten, followed by a surname index for Krämer section lines of descendants. Six of those lines of descendants merge into one another first or directly into what is referred to as the Krämer line of descendants. If this seems confusing, study the pedigree chart of Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5] found at the end of the book, starting from the right instead of the left. Those people listed at the extreme right of the pedigree are the oldest ancestors listed in the pedigree. Now move toward the left, noting the line of descendants code and generation number next to an ancestor’s name, and I believe you will understand how the merger of the six lines of descendants into one another or directly into the Krämer line of descendants occurs. The earliest listings of ancestors of Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5] occur in the Otten line of descendants, six generations back from Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5]. They were her fourth great-grandparents.

You will note that the given names Stephen, Emilie and Godfrey have been underlined in listing Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4], Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5] and Johann Gottfried (Godfrey) NIENHAUS [G-5]. In instances in which a person has more than one given name, and I know the given name that the person commonly used, I underline that given name. Parentheses around a given name indicates that the name was acquired or taken after that person’s birth or baptismal record. Married women are always listed with their maiden surnames, and there is no listing of a married name in parentheses after a maiden surname. Parentheses around a surname indicates that it is a spelling variation of the surname found in records subsequent to a person’s birth or baptismal record. Not all surname spelling variations of persons found in this book are listed in parenthesis. While direct line (ancestors) and close collateral relatives (aunts, uncles, and cousins of various degrees) appear both in the narrative and in the complete lines of descendants listed in chapters seven and ten, more distant collateral relatives are only listed in the lines of descendants. The parentheses for the given names and surnames are not generally used for more distant collateral relatives. In most instances the surname is listed as it was initially spelled in a person’s birth or baptismal record. In instances in which I do not have a person’s birth or baptismal record, the spelling of the surname is that found on the earliest available record in which that person’s name appears, such as a marriage record, or the birth or baptismal record of that person’s eldest known child. In some instances, mainly for ancestors, in which I use the spelling of a person’s surname other than from the earliest available record, I do so for clarity and explain my reasons for doing so in the narrative.

I will next explain how I came to write this book, the nature of the records that I used, and some of the things which were helpful and some of the things which were troublesome in doing the research.

In one sense this project began, appropriately enough, in a country cemetery. It was a day in May of 1993 when my parents and I had taken geraniums to plant on graves at Oakwood Cemetery, just outside of the small town of Braidwood in northeastern Illinois. Now the graves were not those of any persons who are the subject of this book, but the graves of another set of ancestors who as children had come to this country from England. A lady who was doing research on that family had left a note in a bottle by one of the gravestones. She was perplexed by the tombstones because she could not figure out who the woman was who was buried next to the brother of her husband’s ancestor, and she wondered if anyone could tell her who the woman was. The woman was the wife of that brother, but after his death she had remarried and the surname listed on her tombstone was the surname of her second husband. Correspondence ensued in which we have shared information back and forth with the researcher.

The incident sparked a renewed interest in pursuing research into family history. I have had a life long interest in history. It was my favorite subject in grade school and high school, and I majored in history as an undergraduate in college. I had a special interest in European history and would wonder from time to time what my ancestors were doing when the great historical events and political, economic and social movements that I was studying had occurred. From time to time I had asked several older members of the family about the family history and had taken some notes on what they had said. I had intended to find out more about my ancestors, but had never gotten around to it until that day in the country cemetery.

Clara KNOWLES [sp G-5], whose mother and father were buried in that country cemetery and who was the wife of Peter Joseph GRUBEN [G-5], and the daughter-in-law of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] and Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5], was my first source of information that really was indispensable in pursuing this research. I can still remember when we asked her to fill in part of the pedigree chart in my parents’ family bible. Since Peter Joseph GRUBEN [G-5], was dead by then, she filled in the section of the pedigree chart for his family as well as her own.

Now the father-in-law of Clara KNOWLES [sp G-5] was known as Stephen Gruben. That was how his name was listed in his 3 December 1930 obituary, published on page 2 of the Joliet Herald News, and it is how his name was listed on his tombstone in St. John’s German Catholic Cemetery in Joliet, Illinois. But that was not the given name that he had at birth. She wrote in the pedigree chart in the bible that his given names had been Hubert Jacob. Had I not been alerted to the fact that he had changed his given name, I do not believe that I would have found any of the German records which are the primary subject matter of this book. I will refer to him as Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] because when I found his birth record he was listed simply as Jacob Gruben. He very well may have been christened Hubert Jacob, but I have not seen his baptismal record, so I don’t know if Hubert was actually part of his baptismal name or his confirmation name. I did not find any reference to him in German civil registration records as Hubert or Stephen with the single exception that when he acted as a witness at the wedding of his brother, Johann Peter GRUBEN [G-4] in Hilden on 14 November 1874, he was listed as and signed his name Stephan Gruben. (The English and Americans spell the given name Stephen, but the Germans spell the given name Stephan.) In his 1875 German civil registration marriage record he was simply referred to as Jacob Gruben, just as he had been listed on his birth record. With the exception of several early Joliet City Directory entries in the 1880’s, when he was listed as Stephan, one place in his 1886 naturalization record when he was listed as Stephan Gruben, and in a baptismal record when I suspect as a godfather that he was listed as Hubert Gruben, in all later records written in the United States that I have seen he is listed as Stephen Gruben.

When I began the research for this book in May of 1993, I knew from what Clara KNOWLES [sp G-5] had written in the bible pedigree chart that Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] had been born in Germany, on 8 December 1848, supposedly in Düsseldorf. I knew from my mother, Clare Belle Gruben Glass, that he had been the youngest of fourteen children. My mother was one of seven children, and she recalls him telling her in German accented English: You come from a schmall (small) family. Well, I suppose if you were the youngest of fourteen children, seven children would seem like a small family.

The bible pedigree listing did not go back any further in time with the Gruben family than Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4], born on 8 December 1848. I did not know the names of his parents or his brothers and sisters.

The bible pedigree listing did not go back any further in time with the Krämer family than Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5], born on 30 May 1848. Her place of birth was listed as Kellen (taken to mean Köln which the English and Americans refer to as Cologne), Germany. So Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5] supposedly was born in Köln, Germany. Note that I have used the word supposedly twice, referring to the birth places of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] and Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5]. These locations turned out to be in the vicinity of their places of birth, but not precise enough to find the actual records when dealing with German civil registration system of the 19th century. There is no national index for the German civil registration records of the 19th century so one needs the exact location of the German civil registration office in order to find the record in question.

I also had a photocopy of a handwritten list made by their youngest surviving child, Peter Joseph GRUBEN [G-5], of his brothers and sisters with the birth dates, but not their places of birth, next to their names. I had some letters which Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] had received from Germany which had been written in German in the old German script. It was some time before I understood what had been written in many of those letters, and it was only after I completed some of the research on the German records that I found that I was able to place the people writing and people referred to in some context.

I also had biographical sketches which Clare Belle Gruben Glass and another Gruben descendant, Leona Brugge, had separately written about Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN and the Gruben family. My mother and Leona have given me permission to quote portions of those biographical sketches which I do in chapter eleven of this book dealing with the Gruben family in the United States. Somewhat later, in the fall of 1993 we visited Leona Brugge and she let me photograph the discharge document of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] from the German Army in which he was listed simply as Jacob Gruben, and his naturalization certificate as a United States citizen, dated 2 November 1886, in Joliet, Illinois, in which he was listed first as Stephan Gruben and then as Stephen Gruben, but not as Jacob Gruben. These biographical sketches, the discharge record and naturalization certificate gave me important and interesting information about the life of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] and that of his family in the United States, and important and interesting information about his life in Germany. He was the youngest of fourteen children, a blacksmith by trade (more precisely a horseshoer, a blacksmith who specialized in the care and treatment of horses), he had served in the Prussian Army in the Franco Prussian War of 1870, and had received the Iron Cross military decoration for his service in that war. Later he had specialized in making tools and specialty steel items. However, I had no information about the names of his parents or his brothers or sisters.

What was known about Maria Emilie KRÄMER [K-5], was that her father owned a brush factory, her church supposedly had been the Köln (Cologne) Cathedral, and the ship, in which she had come to America with her four small children born in Germany, had partially flooded, and she and her children had been in danger of drowning during that voyage. The biographical sketches did not contain her parents’ names nor the names of any brothers and sisters.

I was about to begin genealogical research with a lot more information than many people have at the start. I was to learn over the next weeks, months, and years that genealogical research is very much like being in the middle of a mystery story with enough red herrings to please Agatha Christie. I soon decided that it was lucky that not only did I like history but I also liked mystery stories. One big difference between a mystery story and genealogical research: with a mystery story you can be sure that you will know whodunit at the end of the book, but with genealogical research you are not quite sure that you will ever know the answer to the question: who were those people?

Put another way, genealogical research is like a jigsaw puzzle with problems. You are almost certain that you don’t have all the pieces available. Some pieces may be hidden and take years to find. Some pieces may contain the wrong information or give the wrong impression. Some of the pieces may have been destroyed. This is especially true in the case of German research because of the extensive destruction that took place in Germany during World War II. And finally, some of the places in the puzzle where there should be pieces, don’t have any pieces because the information was never written down in record form.

Over the years I have become keenly aware that not only is genealogical research a great deal of hard work and organization, but that success is really, in the end, a matter of luck. If the records no longer exist, if they were never written correctly or if they were never written down at all, no amount of hard work can compensate. I feel very lucky that so many of my family’s records still exist in a part of the world that was subject to such widespread and devastating destruction in World War II. I also feel very lucky that I found these records in a part of Germany where very detailed civil registrations records were available in the 19th century. During that period, there were many areas of Germany in which the records, even if available, were not nearly as detailed as they were in the Düsseldorf/Köln area of Germany.

I also feel that I have been given special help with the research. The winter after I began the research, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) in Peoria, Illinois, was giving a seminar on genealogical research. While the seminar was for LDS members, and I am not a member of their church, one of the Family History Center librarians, Carl Dane, asked if I would be interested in attending. I did attend and learned a lot of helpful information and many useful techniques. The following summer, the Illinois State Genealogical Society just happened to hold a two day seminar in downtown Peoria, the principal subject matter of which just happened to be German research. I attended and learned many important things about German research, and, what was especially helpful, there were genealogical book sellers present, and I was able to purchase a number of books after having the opportunity to peruse the books and choose what would be most helpful. There are two books that I purchased at that seminar which I would say were indispensable to my research: If I Can, You Can Decipher German Records by Edna M. Bentz; and the German English Genealogical Dictionary by Ernest Thode.

Now for both of those seminars, I had traveled only a few miles from home to attend and obtain the genealogical research material. I felt I had been given special help.

The early phase of my research in 1993 dealt with records in the United States. This research was done at the Peoria Public Library, which had 1880 and 1900 soundex (index) records on microfilm for the United States Census for Illinois. Through a library loan program the Peoria Public Library obtained the actual census records that I needed. Since both my mother’s and father’s families came from Will county in northeastern Illinois, I was at that time covering all family lines through the censuses. In the fall of 1993 my research shifted more and more to the Family History Center in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Peoria, Illinois. I still had not specialized on a particular family line.

My father’s parents originally came from Kentucky. I knew that the Glass family had specifically come from Owen county Kentucky. Through the Family History Center I rented a microfilm of a book on the history of Owen County Kentucky. I checked the index at the end of the book for the name Glass and found references to several pages. On about the second page that I checked, I read that anyone interested in tracing the Glass family would do well to consult a book entitled William Glass of Virginia and Kentucky, a copy of which is in the Filson Genealogy Club in Louisville, Kentucky. My father and I contacted the Filson Genealogy Club and were able to obtain a copy of that book. It was indeed the right family. I learned that the author, Zelma McCord McMurtry, had spent twenty-five years researching the Glass family and collateral lines. She had traced the family back to a French Huguenot by the name of Leonard Dozier who had come to Virginia in 1682 and was made a naturalized Virginian under the authority of King Charles II of England. Leonard Dozier was my eighth great grandfather. The William Glass in the title of her book was my fifth great-grandfather, and, according to a family researcher who had done work on the family history about 100 years ago, that researcher’s grandfather told him that he in turn had been told by his grandfather, the aforementioned William Glass of Virginia and Kentucky, that William Glass had been at Yorktown and had seen the surrender of Cornwalis’ army to George Washington in 1781. While there is not documentary proof that William Glass was in the revolutionary army, there is documentary evidence that his brother-in-law, Benjamin Cave the 2nd, was a Captain under LaFayette, and, since William Glass had been raised from an early age by his half sister, Elizabeth, and that brother-in-law, Benjamin Cave the 2nd, the story has plausibility.

I mention this story to illustrate how someone can sometimes learn a great deal of genealogical information after relatively little effort. Finding that information on my father’s side of the family also was the catalyst for narrowing the focus of the research. I began hearing from my mother: You have found all that information on your father’s side of the family, why can’t you find a similar amount of information on my side of the family?

I was about to learn something else about genealogy in the quest for that information: sometimes you find information with relatively little effort and sometimes it takes years of effort. It had taken Zelma McCord McMurtry twenty five years to do the research the Glass family. The information that had taken so much of her effort, practically fell into my lap. I did the research on this book on nearly a full time basis for over eight years and on a part time basis for two additional years. I had the advantage of a computer, an outstanding research facility in the LDS Family History Center, and the incredible detail contained in the 19th century German civil registration records which gave me a fine running start to deal with the less detailed (at times maddeningly lacking in detail) German Catholic Church records of the 18th and 17th century.

What follows is a brief summary about why 1) the computer, 2) the Family History Center, and 3) the detail contained in the German civil registration records were so important to my German research:

1)   The computer is an amazing tool in genealogical research. The genealogical data base, the word processor program and other data bases that I have developed in this work have really done the work of a whole staff of research assistants. And then there are the numerous times that information has to be modified: more children are added to a family, the spellings of names are corrected, dates are corrected, and people turn out not to be the relatives you thought they were. In the years before computers and genealogical data bases, I pity the poor genealogical researchers who had to redo whole pedigree charts, family group sheets, lines of descendants and rewrite a whole set of notes records. The shear drudgery of endlessly redoing records replaced in many cases by a few key strokes on a computer keyboard and/or clicks of a mouse button to make the necessary modifications, followed by the printer spewing out the revised pedigree chart, family group sheet (with revised notes) and list of descendants.

2)   For anyone doing research in the United States on German ancestors, a few words of advice: don’t try to do German research without haunting your closest Family History Center. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints LDS) in Salt Lake City, Utah has the world’s largest genealogy library. The library has over 100,000 microfilms and microfiche containing information about people who lived in Germany. Most of those 100,000 microfilms and microfiche are available for loan to your local Family History Center. You can rent a microfilm for a specified period; microfiche are rented on an indefinite basis.

3)   Finally, there is the amazing detail of the 19th century German civil registration records. Those records were available in the Düsseldorf/Köln area of Germany when they began in that area of Germany in 1810 through the year 1875. (Because of privacy considerations records after 1875 are not generally available, unless your inquiry concerns a legal matter, or you are the spouse or direct descendant of the deceased person in question.) If you ask me what was my surprise in this research, I would tell you that I was astounded by the detail contained in those German civil registration birth, marriage and death records.

For example: during the course of my research I obtained a copy of a 1827 German civil registration marriage record for the parents of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4]. At a time when in many parts of the United States you would be lucky to get a one line entry stating that a named groom married a named bride on a specific date, the marriage record of Johann Gottfried GRUBEN [G-3] and Maria Agnes SCHMITZ [Sz-4] was a two page document listing the groom’s residence: Pempelfort, a section in Düsseldorf, the groom’s occupation (Kutscher = coachman); the place and date of his baptism: Deutz, which is located directly across the Rhein (Rhine) River from Köln (Cologne); baptized on 18th of January 1802; lists the groom as the legitimate son of Hucklanbroich resident parents. (Hucklanbroich turned out to be a village located just south of Richrath where Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN’s [G-4] birth record had been found). The father of the groom was a postilion, a coachman, or more precisely, the rider of the left lead horse of a team of horses drawing a carriage. If there were two horses in the team there was no driver on the carriage. If there were four horses in the team, there was also a driver on the carriage. The father of the groom was named Jacob GRUBEN (GRUVEN) [G-2] so I learned that Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4], had probably been named for his grandfather. The mother of the groom was Maria Magdalena Ursula BIERNESSER [B-2]. Now while I did not realize it when I first started working with the German civil registration records, you can normally also tell by the listing whether the parents of the bride and groom were still living.

A similar amount of detail was listed for the bride and her family. This was followed by the listing of four witnesses complete with their occupations, ages and places of residence. While this marriage record did not indicate a relationship of any of the witnesses to the bride or groom, some German civil registration marriage records do. I later learned that the witness, Joannes Fridericus (Friedrich) SCHAUFF [G-3], age 24, a Schmied (smith), was the first cousin of the groom, Johann Gottfried GRUBEN [G-3]. Another witness, Jacob Schmitz, complete name: Jacob Wilhelm Joseph SCHMITZ [Sz-4], age 24, a Wagner (carriage; wagon maker), was a brother of the bride, Maria Agnes SCHMITZ [Sz-4].

I am not through telling you what you can learn from one German civil registration marriage record: the listing of witnesses is followed by the signature of the groom, the signature of the bride, and the signatures of the four witnesses, as well as the signature of the Burgermeister or his delegate recording the document. In that particular 1827 marriage record those signing only used their initials for their given names, but in many civil registration records people do sign given names as well as surnames. Sometimes the signatures vary from the names listed in text of the record. For instance, a name in the text of a document may have a first and middle name as well as a surname, but someone signs his or her name with the middle name and surname, indicating that he or she probably went by the middle name. Sometimes the spelling of the surname in the signature is different from the way it was spelled in the main text of the document. So it is not just that you get to view how an ancestor signed his or her name, but you can also learn the familiar name he or she used, and if he or she had another way of spelling the surname.

Note that I glossed over the detail on the bride’s listing in the marriage record. Don’t worry, if you are only reading this book because you are interested in the Schmitz line. I will cover all of that material in chapter four on the Schmitz family. I will merely point out here that Schmitz was the most common surname that I encountered in this German research. While I cannot find its meaning listed in a reference book on surnames, Schmitz appears to be a corruption of the German occupational name Schmied (smith). Trying to track someone named Schmitz in Germany is like trying to track someone named Smith in the United States. After lots of trial and error (lots of errors) I finally found the civil registration death record of the father of Maria Agnes SCHMITZ’s [Sz-4. It was the key that enabled me to trace the Schmitz line back to 1730. Without the detail provided in that German civil registration death record it would have been virtually impossible to trace that Schmitz line with only the earlier Catholic baptism, marriage and death records.

Now that I trust that I have convinced you how wonderful the German civil registration records are, I will admit that was not my reaction when I first had to deal with them. German civil registration records are written in an old German writing style which is very different from the writing that we are used to seeing. Even when you become familiar with how the letters are formed, the lower case letters e, n, and u can be easily confused if the person writing in the old German script is not careful. Curiously the names of the principals in the German civil registration birth, marriage, and death records are written in a Roman writing style which we as English speaking people use. This I at once found helpful and annoying: helpful because I could at least read the name of the person whose record I was looking at, and annoying because they obviously knew how to write the Roman script (often beautifully), but chose to write most of the document with all of the detail in it in the old German script. It took some time before I was comfortable reading those records. Initially I was much more comfortable reading the Catholic Church records because they were generally written in the Roman writing style of western Europe with which we are familiar. Frequently the

Roman writing in those old Catholic Church records was clearer than most present day American writing. Most of the Catholic records were written in Latin. I had taken three years of Latin in a high school so most of these records presented no problem to read from the very beginning. Actually I would hardly have needed any Latin language courses to deal with most of the Latin church records because a very limited vocabulary was used, much of which is understandable even without consulting a Latin dictionary or Latin genealogical word list. As time went on, and, even though I had not taken any German language courses in school, I became more and more comfortable in dealing with the German civil registration records. (I should qualify that by saying comfortable in dealing with the type of German civil registration records found in the Düsseldorf/Köln area). I am now familiar with the format of the German civil registration birth, marriage, and death records in that area, and, since much of the vocabulary is repetitive, I can now deal with them about as easily as I can deal with records written in English. Even if the handwriting is bad, I know what many of the words are or should be in the German civil registration records so I can figure out how the burgermeister or delegate of the town council was forming letters in known words and compare those letter formations to letters in unknown words. Show me some other German document, however, and it is a whole other story. I am at the dictionary for long periods of time and the handwriting can present real problems.

As I said, the LDS has filmed the civil registration records in the Düsseldorf/Köln area of Germany from their beginning in that area in 1810 up through 1875. Records after 1875 were not available because of privacy considerations. However, there are a few instances in which there are listings of dates in the German records after 1875. This occurs because an earlier birth or marriage record in 1875 or earlier was annotated in the margin with a reference to later records. Because of those annotations, in a couple of instances, there are death dates for persons listed in the lines of descendants who died in Germany as recently as the 1950’s.

The LDS did not film the German church records for the period 1810 through 1875 for jurisdictions in which the more detailed civil registration records were available. For years prior to 1810 the LDS filmed existing German church records. There are Lutheran, Catholic and Reform church records for the period prior to 1810 in the Düsseldorf/Köln area. All of the records in the direct family lines of Jacob (Stephen) GRUBEN [G-4] and Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5] turned out to be Catholic records. Only a few records of collateral relatives turned out to be Evangelische (Protestant) ((In this case Lutheran)). For most of the Catholic churches in the area that means records are available from at least 1770 to 1809, although a few parishes in this category have years missing or are missing whole types of records such as missing baptism or marriage or death records. There was an edict in 1769, that beginning with the 1770 records, that the pastors had to deposit a set of records at a central office for each year. Copies of the records were made. That copies were made and the records were stored in a secure place probably accounts for so many of these records surviving World War II.

In addition, a number of parishes have records which go back before 1770, and, in these earlier records, one finds that more records are missing and what at times appears to be partial reconstruction of records. For example there may be baptism or death records for a particular year, but there appear to be fewer records spread farther apart than records in following or even previous years. I have a strong suspicion that many of the death records were not done contemporaneously, but were done subsequently by someone copying names off of cemetery markers. In an age when life was hard and often short, some of the parishes have fewer death records in a number of years than I would have expected. A few of the parishes have records that go back as far as the early 1600’s, but, more commonly in this category, they begin in the 1690’s or later. Many of the Catholic Church records from the 1600’s are written in German in the old German script rather than in Latin. In these early records sometimes a combination of Latin and German is used.

Many of the Catholic Church records just do not convey complete information. Of course I am aware that when the Catholic records were written, it is unlikely that anyone would have anticipated that people 200, 300 or 375 years in the future would be using those records to research their genealogy. The records had a contemporary purpose and those records probably served that purpose well, although I do wonder in some instances how the priests would be able to determine whether two people were or were not relatedtoo closely to preclude their marriage.

I am struck by the contrast in my view of the Latin Catholic Church records and German civil registration records when I started the research and now. When I started the research I was comfortable with the Latin Catholic Church records because I could so easily read them. Today I am frustrated with them because there is often so little detail in them. The same given names are used over and over again and it is frequently difficult to determine with any certainty the identity of a person being listed as a bride, groom, witness, or godparent. One example of this is that the vast majority of Catholic Church marriage records prior to 1810 in the Düsseldorf /Köln area do not indicate who the groom’s mother and father were, or who the bride’s mother and father were. With the repetitive use of the same given names in extended families or even people unrelated with the same surname, this can lead to a lot of confusion. I have had to go through entire parish records repeatedly because it is only after reviewing those records thoroughly that you can say with some assurance that a particular family line exists.

In contrast, when I began the German research, I felt very uncomfortable in dealing with the German civil registration records because I did not have a background in the German language, but, more importantly, because the old German script was so difficult to decipher. Today my attitude is completely changed. After years of first staring at and then working with the old German writing in the German civil registration records, I can make out most of it immediately, some of it takes longer, and a small amount at times can still be indecipherable. But then you can encounter a small amount of material that is indecipherable with records written in English, so that does not ordinarily bother me that much, unless I think that I may be missing something important. Anyway, in general the German civil registration records so explicitly identify people that there is not much chance of confusing someone with another person, even if the surname happens to be Schmitz. This greatly cuts down on the amount of time that one has to spend on the civil registration records in comparison to the Catholic records.

Now I trust I have convinced you of how lacking in detail the Catholic records are for the period before 1810 in the Düsseldorf/Köln (Cologne) area, so I will now cite a couple of exceptions. The general rule in genealogy seems to be that there are always exceptions. In many parishes they started to put more detail in the records starting around 1805 or 1806. This coincided with greater French influence under Napoleon. Perhaps the priests were required to put more detail in their records. For whatever reason, many of the records contained more detail and many of these more detailed records were written in German in the old German script.

Another exception to the rule concerned a particular parish in which the priest went into more detail on some of the records than I ordinarily saw. It happened that the great grandfather of Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5], Peter Thomas CREMER (KREMER) [Kr-2], died in the parish of Gräfrath Wald. Note, once having found civil registration birth record of Maria Emilie KRÄMER [Kr-5], I was able to identify her great-grandfather within a couple of months even with the delay of ordering and obtaining additional microfilms from the LDS in Salt Lake because of the road map of detail contained in the German civil registration records. In general the detail in the civil registration records allows you rather easily to get back at least one generation into the church records prior to 1810. Now many Catholic death records only gave the name of the person and the date of death. The Catholic death record for Peter Thomas CREMER (KREMER) [Kr-2] used the spelling Kremer. The record stated that he was from Lützenkirchen, was the husband of Anna Christina OTTEN [O-4] (so I knew I had the right Peter Thomas Kremer), was born on 7 August 1741, was 59 years, 4 months, (number of days missing from entry) at time of death. The record stated that he died at Scheidbeim Ohligs on 11 December 1800. The cause of death listed was a slow (lingering) tubercular ailment and the record stated that he was buried in the cemetery at Wald on 14 December 1800.

Now Kramer is not as common a surname in the Düsseldorf/Köln area of Germany as Schmitz, but it is still a very common surname. Kramer means merchant or peddler in German so when people began taking surnames in the 1500’s, one of the chief methods of selecting a surname was based on the man’s occupation. There were likely