The Best Census Enumerator Ever

We genealogists spend a lot of time grumbling about census enumerators with illegible handwriting or those who were just plain careless.  But I stumbled across a wonderful enumerator today, surnamed Eddibert - he added the census page and line number of the head of household for people who were not living with their families.  Here's an example:

Source:  Otto W. Sisker household, 1920 US census, Hillsboro, Risley Township, Marion County, Kansas, SD 4, ED 74, pages 5A-5B, lines 47-54.  Accessed on familysearch.org on 20 October 2017.

Here Lena Siebel on the bottom line is not living with her family.  The enumerator added a note that she is a daughter to the person on line 77, page 4B.

That page is a couple pages back in the census, so let's take a look at it:

Source:  George Seibel household, 1920 US census, Hillsboro, Risley Township, Marion County, Kansas, SD 4, ED 74, page 4B, lines 77-80.  Accessed on familysearch.org on 20 October 2017.

And here on line 77, we see George Seibel, who is head of the household and Lena's father.  What a find if you are trying to untangle family relationships!  And you'll notice that the third person in this household is Grace Schmidt, whom he notes is the wife of the person on line 21, page 2A.  So he did it more than once.

I'm sure this was not standard practice, but it is valuable information today.

FamilySearch County Wikis

It's hard to overstate the value of the FamilySearch county wikis for US research.  In the last few years, they have improved them from bare stubs to detailed articles with numerous links and sources and the locations of many record types.  If you last looked at them a while back, you need to check back. 

For example, in Jefferson County, Nebr., it tells you that the county clerk has marriage records from 1864 and that the county judge has probate records from 1870.  It gives a link to a site for Nebraska newspapers and for county cemeteries.  It gives you the address and e-mail for the county genealogy society and the public library.  It describes county boundary changes and known record losses and has a table with the county population in each census.  You can do a lot of research from home using its links, and it lets you know which courthouse office to visit for each record type when you make a genealogy visit. 

Don't miss this resource.

Finding John Glen/Jan Glein's Father

As I described in my previous post, I have been researching John Glen #319928 (1864-1939), a family friend of my maternal grandparents.  I found his passenger manifest when he immigrated to New York City, but I wanted to find his parents, whose names were unknown.

First, I tried plugging in all the information that I had about him into Ancestry and FamilySearch, but I found nothing useful.  I got a lot of family trees that had been put up by descendants of his wife's family [Aganetha Heidebrecht #319927 (1882-1947)], but they had no information about his parents.  I decided to try his marriage license, death certificate, and obituary since those are common sources for parents' names.

Since he was Kleine Gemeinde, I figured that Christlicher Familienfrend, the denominational paper of the KG, would be the most likely place for an obituary.  The nearby Mennonite Library and Archive at Bethel College in North Newton, Kans., has the Christlicher Familienfreund, and it was easy to find his obituary in the July 1939 issue, the month after he died.

J. H. Reimer, “Todesberichte Johann Glen,” Christlicher Familienfreund, July 1939, p. 4, Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas.

Unfortunately, it gave no information about his parents.

From Grandma I knew that he had married on 7 May 1905, in Jansen, Nebr.  Recently I was in Fairbury, Nebr., the county seat of Jefferson County where Jansen is located.  The FamilySearch wiki for Jefferson County, Nebr., reports that the county kept marriage records from 1864, so I should be in luck.  And the county clerk indeed had his marriage record to Aganetha Heidebrecht.

Marriage license, John Glen to Agnes Heidebrecht, 7 May 1905, Jefferson County, Nebraska, Marriage Record G:272, County Clerk, Courthouse, Fairbury.

And the marriage license gave his father's name as Frank Glen but his mother's name was unknown.  This made sense because John Glen's youngest son was named Frank as well - he must have named him in honor of his father.  Even though I was a touch disappointed that it didn't give his mother's name, I was thrilled to find his father's name.

I'm sure that his father's real name was not "Frank Glen" because "John Glen" was the Americanized version of his Polish name, Jan Glein.  So his father's surname was surely "Glein."  And Franciszek is the Polish version of the name Francis or Frank, so I am sure his father's real name was Franciszek Glein.

I think it says something that he didn't know his mother's name.  Most likely his mother died when he was young.

BTW, I haven't checked the death certificate yet, but it would be interesting to see if the informant knew his mother's name, although I doubt it.

A Polish Mennonite

There have been ethnically Polish Mennonites for centuries.  That's where surnames such as Rogalsky, Sawatsky, Tilitsky, and Petkau come from.  Their forefathers were ethnic Poles, almost certainly Catholic, who became Mennonites in the 18th century or earlier.  But very few ethnic Poles have become Mennonites in North America.  One of those was John Glen #319928 (1864-1939), who joined the Kleine Gemeinde near Jansen, Nebr., having been baptized in 1891.

I came across him because he was friends with my grandparents, Cornelius #7529 (1884-1950) and Margaret Siemens; and his life intrigued me because as a Polish convert in Nebraska he was not a typical KG member.  Although he had children, none of them had any children; so he has left no descendants to research him and to preserve his memory.  So I have taken that task for myself; and he has proven to be quite an interesting, if elusive, person.

First, I decided to find his immigration record, but that proved to be a fruitless search, even with the search capabilities of Ancestry.com.  I also checked the Mennonite immigrant lists in Clarence Hiebert's book Brothers in Deed, Brothers in Need: A Scrapbook About Mennonite Immigrants from Russia, 1870-1885 and David Haury's book Index to Mennonite Immigrants on United States Passenger Lists, 1872-1904 but found nothing.  I suspected that I didn't have his Polish name and that "John Glen" was an Americanized version and that he had used his Polish name when he arrived.

So then I decided to narrow it down by finding his year of immigration in the census records.  But he reported variously that he had immigrated in 1874, 1884 (mentioned twice), 1885, and 1886.  That didn't help much.  But I did note that he said he had been naturalized, mentioning 1913 twice and 1915 once.

So I decided to look for his naturalization record since it should give his immigration date.  If either of the two years of naturalization was correct, he should have been living near Meade, Kans., since the Kleine Gemeinde had migrated there as a group in 1908.  When I searched in Ancestry, I found an index card for him in Meade, Kans., on 28 October 1913.

Naturalization index card for John Glen, 28 October 1913, Western District Court of Missouri, ARC: 572253; Records of District Courts of the United States, Record Group 21; National Archives at Kansas City, Missouri, accessed at Ancestry.com on 5 November 2016.

His naturalization card gave me a month of arrival (March 1884) and a port (New York City).  Fortunately, there were only two passenger ships that arrived in New York City in March 1884.  But Ancestry still couldn't find him with an automated search, so I browsed the records individually.  With only two ships, that was doable.

It took a while, but I came across a "Jan Glein" traveling in a group of 24 single men, mostly young, from Hungary, who arrived on 3 March 1884, on board the S.S. California from Hamburg.  The Kingdom of Hungary was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at that time, so that fit the fact on the naturalization card that he had been a subject or resident of Austria. But he gave an age of 24, meaning that he would have been born in 1859-1860, while the naturalization card gave a birth date of 10 May 1864.  But no one else on those two ships was even close, and enough of the facts fit so that I concluded it was probably he. 

Here is his name from the passenger manifest:

Passenger Jan Glein, Passenger Manifest of Vessels Arriving New York City, 3 March 1884, ship California, page 2, line 61.  Accessed at Ancestry.com on 2 December 2016.

Later I found him in the 1885 census records in Nebraska but not in the 1880 census records anywhere in the US (using the Ancestry search).  I also went manually through the entire 1880 Jefferson County, Nebr., census records, since that is where he was in 1885, but didn't find him.  So that was another piece of evidence that he arrived between 1880 and 1885.

I was so excited that I had manged to track down a single individual who changed his name shortly after arrival!  But of course, I wanted to find out who his parents were.

Tracking Elderly Ancestors

Sometimes it may seem that the retirement years of a person's life are unimportant - genealogically speaking.  But tracking elderly ancestors can tell you a lot about family dynamics.  And sometimes the only way to find an ancestor in old age in the census is to look for his children since he might have been living with them.

Here's an example of my great-great-grandmother, Katharina Bergmann #7126 (1834-1916).  In 1894, her second husband Martin Barkman died.  She continued to own an eighty-acre farm near Jansen, Nebr., that she had bought in 1879, shortly after her first husband died.  But I suppose that her son-in-law, Klaas R. Friesen, farmed her land because he had purchased the neighboring eighty acres in 1892 in the inheritance settlement of her first husband.  Klaas was married to her second daughter, Aganetha Barkman (1858-1931).

Here is a snippet from a plat map.  The land in green to the south is the tract that Klaas R. Friesen had bought from the other heirs in 1892, while the land in blue to the north is the tract that Katharina had purchased herself in 1879 just after her first husband died.

Plat Book of Jefferson County, Nebraska (Northwest Publishing Co., 1900) 7.  Accessed at Fairbury Public Library, Fairbury, Nebraska.

Then in 1899, at age 64, Katharina sold her northern eighty acres to the same son-in-law, Klaas R. Friesen for $2000, which made sense because he owned the adjoining piece of land.  Klaas gave his mother-in-law a mortgage for $1000, so he must not have been able to pay the entire amount at once.  Here is a snippet from the deed:

Warranty Deed, Katharina Bergmann to Klaas R. Friesen, 27 March 1899, Jefferson County, Nebraska, Deed Book 25:165, Register of Deeds, County Courthouse, Fairbury.

A year later at age 65 in the 1900 census we find her living with her oldest daughter, Heinrich and Katharina Reimer, a couple miles away in Rock Creek Precinct just south of Jansen.

Henry Reimer household, 1900 US Census, Nebraska, Jefferson County, Rock Creek Precinct, SD 4, ED 92, p. 15, family 301, lines 31-41.  Accessed at Ancestry.com on 7 November 2012.

The census even gives her relationship as mother-in-law and her birth month of December 1834 - very helpful information in identifying her and confirming her birth date.

In the 1910 census at age 75, she was back in Cub Creek Precinct living with the Klaas R. Friesens, her second daughter's family.  At least two of her daughters and their families, Heinrich and Katharina Reimer and Jacob and Anna Reimer, had moved to Meade, Kans., in 1908; so she moved back to her second daughter then.  It was even a three-generation household, as her newly-wed granddaughter and husband, Henry and Aganetha Kroeker, were also living at home.

Klaas R. Friesen household, 1910 US Census, Nebraska, Jefferson County, Cub Creek Precinct, SD 4, ED 90, p. 11, family 117, lines 37-45.  Accessed at Ancestry.com on 7 November 2012.

Then at age 80 in 1915, she was recorded living with her third daughter's family, Jacob and Anna Reimer near Meade, Kans.  I wonder if she moved from Nebraska to Kansas because her son-in-law Klaas Friesen was getting sickly - he died in 1922 at age 65.  But this is only speculation.  Here is a snippet from the Kansas state census:

Jacob Reimer family, Kansas state census 1915, Meade County, Logan Township, p. 9, lines 10-21.  Accessed at Ancestry.com on 26 June 2016.

My grandmother has told my mother that both of her grandmothers lived in her parents' house at the same time and that sometimes they would argue so severely that her father, Heinrich Reimer, had to come in from the field to settle matters.  I haven't found them living together in any census record, but this story sounds true.

Finally my grandmother Margaretha H. Reimer #321744 (1895-1993) recorded in her family register that her grandmother Katharina Bergman died on 25 November 1916 at age 81 at Jacob Reimer's, the same place she was staying in the 1915 census.

Freundschaft Register Buch (Relatives Register Book), Family records of Margaretha H. (Reimer) Siemens, book begun in 1923, covers years 1808 – about 1980, held by Anna (Siemens) Fast, Hillsboro, Kansas.

By tracing Katharina Bergmann through the documents in her retirement years, we can see that three of her daughters cared for her.  I don't think we can say that she wasn't close to her other children - since the census records are only snapshots, perhaps they don't catch the times when she lived with them.  We also learn that she sold her land to a son-in-law and that he wasn't prosperous enough to pay the full amount at once.  It's important not to ignore the last couple decades of her life.

The key to tracing the last years of elderly ancestors is often to know the names of their sons-in-law.  Most often, they lived with their married daughters, so you need to know the names of their husbands.  If I hadn't known that her daughters married Klaas R. Friesen, Henry F. Reimer, and Jacob F. Reimer, I might not even have found some of the census or land records.  This is probably the most important reason to follow the children of your direct ancestors at least until the parents pass away.