Resource: Old Lutheran Migration

The latest issue of American Ancestors has a great surprise!  American Ancestors is a publication of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and I'm used to finding info about my maternal grandfather's Colonial New England ancestry in almost every issue.  I was unhappy about 2 years ago when the society decided to open their focus to be much more general: there'd be less content for me but I could understand their need to appeal to more people and make more money to support the society...so...

I never expected to find an article directly relevant to my Hegwer line!  While Carl Benjamin Hegwer and Maria Rosina (Ilgner) Hegwer are not specifically mentioned, "George Dopf and the Old Lutheran Migration of 1839" is a very good article about the nature of their immigration in 1839.  It's very hard (as in near impossible?) to find scholarly things in English about the early 1800s in Silesia, so this article is a real treat.  The ship the Hegwer's were on left Hamburg 1 Jul 1839 and is the one described in this article, arriving NY on 24 Aug 1839. 

Wherever the article refers to the Silesia group, that's us!  There is no doubt that Carl Benjamin Hegwer knew Krause and Grabau, and probably Rohr, too.  There was quite a bit of documented 'drama' among the 3 ministers, the Buffalo congregation, and the Wisconsin groups that has been left out of this article.  You can't fit everything in one article!

WHAT I NEED TO DO NOW

I had no idea that any of the travel documents needed by the Old Lutherans to leave Prussia still existed.  I can't wait to follow author McGrath's reference list and see if I can find some new info specific to the Hegwer's or Ilgner's.  Records from the part of Silesia now in Poland are harder to find than those now in Germany, but I'll still try... and maybe the Hegwer/Ilgner party had already started to move and were interrogated along the way, leaving records in what is now Germany???

REFERENCE

McGrath, Lawrence R. "George Dopf and the Old Lutheran Migration of 1839." American Ancestors, Vol. 16 (2), Spring 2015, pages 37-40 & 59.

Disclaimer

I am a paid member of NEHGS but receive no other consideration from them.

A Carr/Causier Voyage & More

The first time I remember hearing the expression "Every journey has two ends" was in a podcast from the National Archives of the United Kingdom. [Please see Note 5 for more info.] Now, I have my own examples!

Fairly recently, findmypast.co.uk (a commercial subscription site) posted oodles of records of passenger lists of people leaving from the UK on long voyages during the years 1890 to 1960. Last week, I finally got around to playing in those records, accessing FindMyPast for free at my local Family History Center. It was great fun!

The Family
Great-Grandparents John Henry CARR and Ann Matilda CAUSIER made at least two trips between the USA and England. The first trip was between May, 1887 and February, 1889, settling in Wisconsin with 3 young children (Matilda, Grice Ethell, & Charles William). There, Jane Catherine, Ernest Grice, and Bertha Maud were born. Sadly, both Matilda and Grice Ethell died in Racine, Wisconsin in July 1889. About 1894, the family returned to England, where their last child, Anne Martha was born in 1904.

The Voyage with Two Ends
Some time ago I had found the arrival manifest for their 15 September 1907 return through Philadelphia. Here are crops of both pages of the arriving manifest.

Page 1 [Source 1]
John Henry CARR is line 18; Ann and four children are lines 19-23:

Before I talk about the Carr’s in this image, let’s look at the ‘scribbles’ on the page. The line through Mr. Marshall on line 26 means he did NOT take the voyage after all. The date and code numbers on line 23 for Aunt Annie most likely mean that she applied for naturalization in 1931. [Note 6]

Page 2 [Source 2]:

I especially value seeing that great-grandfather John Henry was only 5’7” and had blue eyes, while great-grandmother Ann was 5’3” with brown eyes. Re-examing all this info for the writing of this blog, I see that maybe I can’t find a birth record for Ann is because I have been looking in Tipton, Staffordshire per her death certificate, rather than in Castleford, Yorkshire. Given that the passenger list was made 40 years closer to her birth, it could be the accurate one! It’s funny how re-reading documents can reveal details missed before.

Also, note that on Page 2 where it says John Henry was going to his father’s at 188 Wiliams, it really is his father-in-law Charles Causier’s address. There is no indication that William Carr ever left Yorkshire.

Last week, at FindMyPast.co.uk, I found the passenger list for the 4 September 1907 departure from Liverpool [Source 3]. So, now I have both the beginning and end of the Carr’s second voyage! This passenger list doesn’t give me any earth-shattering new info, but it does contain the surprise that Grandma Bertha was called, at least once, “Bessy.” If I had not already had the arrival manifest, finding the departing passenger list would have given me a date, a ship, and a port, which would surely make finding the arrival easier.

The Ship

They traveled on the SS Merion. It was easy to find info on this ship at Wikipedia.com. The wiki entry says that the ship was first launched in 1902, so it was still fairly new when this family sailed. The entry continues that the ship held 150 second class passengers and 1700 in third class. Its career includes running aground and a few at-sea collisions, but fortunately none in 1907! Perhaps most interestingly, it was sunk, without casualties, by a German submarine in WWI while on duty in the Mediterranean as a decoy. [Source 4]

Conclusion
Finding documents and matching photos like all these really strike me. I just stare at this ship thinking over and over that I may have never met them, but my great-grandparents were on this ship! Wow!

Maybe this FindMyPast database will be expanded one day soon and I'll be able to use it to find the date and full info about the first Carr/Causier trip to the USA. For now, I'll just try to get used to the idea that Grandma Bertha may have been a 'Bessie.'

Disclaimer
I neither work for nor receive any consideration from any of the entities listed here.

Sources & Notes
[1] cropped from ancestry.com database “Philadelphia Passenger Lists, 1800-1945,” 1907 / September / Merion / image 27

[2] cropped from ancestry.com database “Philadelphia Passenger Lists, 1800-1945,” 1907 / September / Merion / image 28

[3] cropped from findmypast.co.uk migration database "Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960"; SS Merion, Liverpool to Philadelphia, 4 Sep 1907

[4] Merion picture & info from Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Merion -- Wikipedia says this image is in the public domain in the USA.

[5] More info about the National Archives podcasts: The best way to access their wonderful podcasts is at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/podcasts/

Here's the podcast specific to passenger lists and every voyage having two ends: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/podcasts/every-journey.htm

Just for fun, here are links to 3 of my other most favorite National Archives podcasts:
How the sinking of the Titanic affected the families of the crew
a case study on genealogical research featuring the family of Charles Darwin
workhouses of the 1800s
The National Archives have an incredible amount of resources and I could never do them justice in this blog. For genealogy research help, I love the book Tracing Your Ancestors in the National Archives by Amanda Bevan. My copy is the 7th Edition, published in 2006. !

[6] There is a wonderful document “A Guide to Interpreting Passenger List Annotations” online through JewishGen. It has lots of examples and all sorts of info about all the details on passenger lists. Be sure to look at all of the sections: my printout of the guide runs to 28 pages.

Great-Great Grandparents CAUSIER & 7 missing children

This photo was one of the first CAUSIER items that I found online: it’s posted in numerous places now by several family members. I first found it at Genealogy Cousin Kathy’s website. It shows great-great-grandparents Charles CAUSIER, Catherine (HUGHES), and four children: Manwella, Ann Matilda, Charles, and Martha.

Here is the young family in the 1861 census at 70 Chapel Street in Dist. 29, Sedgley, Staffordshire, England:
In 1871, they are at Half Acres in District 9, Castleford, Yorkshire, England:
By 1881, they have moved a bit to 85 Richard Row, Whitwood, Yorkshire
It was fairly easy to find additional info on the four children, which I'll only summarize here:
Manwella (1859-1937), married Enoch Field
Ann (1861-1940), married John Henry Carr
Charles (1874-1961), married Elizabeth
Martha (1876-1937), married David Slater

The 13 years between the births of Ann and Charles bothered me. Having read several basic genealogy books by then, I knew that such gaps should raise questions. I even went so far as to wonder if the last two were actually grandchildren or were otherwise not birth children of Charles and Catherine.

But then I found Charles and Catherine in both the 1900

and 1910 census
In both of these US census records, they are at 188 Williams St. in the 17th ward of Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Both images show entries with Catherine having 4 living children but having had 11 children! I was missing seven children!

Since I already had found the family in every possible England census, it probably meant that the seven had died very young and missed census listings. But it really bothered me not to know their names. Since finding they existed, I have been on the lookout for the missing children.

A reference from Genealogy Cousin Judy first showed me that the family had been non-conformist. (I now know that in that time period in Yorkshire non-conformists were common.) Judy’s reference led me to FHL# 1,657,057, which is primarily baptism registers for several Methodist chapels or circuits in Yorkshire. It wasn’t too hard to find three entries (Item 3, Primitive Methodist Baptism Register, Castleford Bradley Street, 1862-1880, pp. 12, 28, & 37 respectively) for children of Charles & Catherine Causier, living in Castleford with Charles’ occupation as a labourer:

Charles (#1), born 24 Dec 1867, baptized 19 Jan 1868
Sarah, born 1 Aug 1871, baptized 27 Aug 1871
Lydia, born 30 Dec 1872, baptized 2 Mar 1873

Now, my list of the children of Charles & Catherine CAUSIER is:
Manwella, born 1859
Ann, born 1861
Missing child 1863?
Missing child 1865?
Missing child 1866?
Charles (#1), born 24 Dec 1867
Missing child 1869?
Sarah, born 1 Aug 1871
Lydia, born 30 Dec 1872
Charles (#2), born 1874
Martha, born 1876

Of course, the possible dates that I’ve listed for the missing children are merely guesses. Catherine would have been about 40 in 1878, so there could even be one that late. [Writing this blog entry also shows me that I am missing real sources for most of Charles & Catherine and for all 3 of the girls in the photo, too! I have to see if the Primitive Methodists kept burial records…. This family group sheet is not in anywhere as good a shape as I thought it was… ]

So, this blog entry is not complete. It is important to me to remember all 11 of Charles and Catherine’s children. At least now I only have 4 missing children. I will keep looking for them and I hope to have good news here one day!

IMAGES All census excerpts are from ancestry.com images

Great-Great-Grandparents Charles Causier & Catherine Hughes: New Info!

Familysearch.org is adding new databases almost daily; I try to remember to go and look for new info regularly. Currently, the site is still at pilot.familysearch.org , but that URL will probably be changing in the near future as the "New" FamilySearch rolls out.

Last night, while just playing around, I saw new data for the Wisconsin State Censuses and ran the surname 'Causier' just for fun. Sure enough, there was great-great-grandfather C. CAUSIER in June 1885 in the village of Bay View, Milwaukee County!

The household is 2 males and 2 females, all born Great Britain. That data lines up perfectly with my expectations for Charles, wife Catherine (HUGHES), son Charles, and daughter Martha. This new info is especially nice to have since Charles & Catherine supposedly immigrated in 1881 but I had found no record of them in the USA until 1889 and 1890 at 188 Williams St., Milwaukee in a Milwaukee Wisconsin Directory (ancestry.com). Now I can look for them specifically in Bay View.

An adjacent 1885 Wisconsin census entry is for the family of E. Field. That data lines up perfectly with expectations for son-in-law Enoch Field, his wife Manwella (Causier), and their 3 oldest children Enoch, Ada, and Charles. This new info is nice to have since it fits so well with a ship manifest showing them arriving May 11 in New York on the ship 'Germanic' from Liverpool (NY passenger list available at ancestry.com). Note that in the 1900 and 1910 US censuses, Manwella is said to have immigrated in 1884, but in the 1930 US census, she supposedly immigrated in 1888. So, even given that census entries and memories may be faulty, we must at least consider that there may have been both earlier and later trips to the USA than the 1885 trip for the Fields.

What a great find! The only problem that every "great find" seems to lead to more questions...!

Great-Great-Grandparents Hegwer & Ilgner

It seems fairly well "proven" that Carl Benjamin Hegwer and his wife, Maria Rosina Ilgner were part of the "Old Lutheran" migration and came from Kunitz, Liegnitz, Silesia (an area of what was then Prussia, but is now in Poland). Prior to the discovery discussed here, I had seen nothing that took either line back before 1839.

I have talked with several German language/genealogy “experts” locally and they have all agreed that ILGNER/ ILGNAR/JLGNER/JLGNAR/JIGNER spellings would have been basically equivalent, especially in that timeframe. For simplicity, I will use ILGNER here unless quoting directly from a source.

Maria Rosina ILGNER’s surname seemed well established in several sources [i.e., 1,2, 3, 4]. There are some genealogies that give her surname as “Traugott,” but I have found no records to that effect. I suspect they were assuming that a surname had been used as her eldest son’s given name. There are some genealogies that use “Schletz,” but they appear to have merged her name with that of one of her sons-in-law.

ILGNER early immigration to Wisconsin
One of the first things I did when I found the publications of Pommerscher Verein Freistadt was to look and see if there were others who settled in the Freistadt area who had also come from the Liegnitz area. My hope was that perhaps I could have better luck tracing others than I was having with Carl Benjamin and Maria. There were very few others from Silesia, but one stood out since it also was an Ilgner!
Benjamin SCHOEN/SCHöN and his wife (Anna) Rosina JLGNER immigrated to Wisconsin in 1841 from Pfaffendorf, Liegnitz, Silesia. [4, 5, 6] They settled in Grafton, which is near Mequon. The given names of their children are very similar to those of the HEGWER/ILGNER offspring. At that point in my research it appeared reasonable that the two Ilgner women were related but I had no real links.
HEGWER and especially SCHOEN appear often in publications about the church these early immigrants established in Mequon. The Ozaukee County website has information about early church history. See their fine website for a photo of the historical marker.

HEGWER and JLGNER on same passenger list
While doing some census work on some of Carl Benjamin and Maria's children and grandchildren, one of those ancestry.com (usually bothersome) "did you know" links about a Hegwer on a passenger list popped up. Usually such links take me to some well known Hegwer census info, but since this was a passenger list, I went ahead and looked at it right then. Much to my surprise, it was for a passenger list of the “Flying Dutchman”, arriving in New York on 28 July 1853 from Hamburg [please see Note 10 below], and showed C. JLGNER, 74, going from Prussia to Wisconsin and traveling with T. HEGWER, 19, going from Wisconsin to Wisconsin. Also, A. JLGNER, 27 was traveling with them from Prussia, as was A. ROWE (?spelling?), 30. The three going to Wisconsin are listed as being in husbandry. [7] I was very excited by now having another document that linked Hegwer's with Ilgner's!

The age and initial of “T Hegwer” is consistent with that of Carl Traugott Hegwer, the eldest son of Carl Bejamin Hegwer and Maria Rosina Ilgner. It was common for families in America to send an older son to Europe to accompany later immigrating family members to America. At this point, I was pretty sure that C. Jlgner, whoever he was, was related to Maria and I became even more vigilant for ILGNER surnames. 


ILGNER probate
In the meantime, the rental price of microfilms from the Salt Lake City FHL had jumped and I had become much more selective about what I ordered. Also, I started making more of a point of seeing just what microfilms were already available at the nearby Regional Family History Center. On a trip to that center, I checked the following film only because it said Ozaukee County and it was already there so I would not have to pay to order it! I was surprised to find that FHL # 1309213 did indeed have an index listing for Carl ILGNER, 77, died 1856, probate packet A84 [footnote 8 below]. The age was consistent with that of the immigrant on the Flying Dutchman who was traveling with T. Hegwer. Ozaukee County is consistent with the HEGWERs at that time. The year and packet number led me to ordering the film which would have that packet. I eagerly waited the month it took for it to come....

FHL# 1320207’s probate packet number A84 is for the probate of Carl Frederick ILGNER and it is a genealogical goldmine [footnote 9 below] for HEGWERs! The “packet,” as filmed, is about 93 images of various handwritten documents including a will, witness statements, receipts, and a brief inventory. The images are clear and most are fairly easy to read. There appears to have been a bit of a dispute between the executor (J. Andrew SCHLETZ, the husband of Carl and Maria's daughter Christina Mary) and at least one of the other legatees, thus explaining the unusual number of witness statements and the detail.

CONCLUSIONS
There is no doubt that Carl Frederick Ilgner was the father of both Maria Rosina (Ilgner) Hegwer and Anna Rosina (Ilgner) Schoen. The probate documents list his grandchildren and most of the spouses at that time. It includes a comment that Traugott was his favorite since Traugott had gone to Germany to bring him to the USA, thus validating my assumptions about the Flying Dutchman passenger list. A timeline for Carl Frederick Ilgner’s movements for the short time he was in Wisconsin can be extracted.

It was very exciting to find such valuable info and to be able to share it! (This blog entry is modified from entries I posted at rootsweb and genealogy.com.) I've been working on finding descendants of Benjamin Schoen and Anna Rosina Ilgner, dreaming that they will have the entire Ilgner pedigree already worked out! I am also trying to track August Ilgner (A. Jlgner of the passenger list), who was listed in Carl Frederick's probate but without a relationship given.


SOURCES

1. Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church of Freistadt. Freistadt and the Lutheran Immigration. Mequon, Wisconsin: Freistadt Historical Society, 1998 reprint of 1989 edition, p. 35.

2. Filby, P. William (Ed.), Passenger and Immigration Lists Index (First Ed.), Volume 2, Detroit: Gale Research, 1985. p. 1267 & p. 1488.

3. www.immigrantships.net; “Brig Caroline,” Hamburg to New York, 27 Aug 1839.

4. Smith, Clifford N., Nineteenth-Century Emigration of “Old Lutheran,” from Eastern Germany (Mainly Pomerania and Lower Silesia) to Australia, Canada, and the United States. McNeal, AZ: Westland Publications, 1980, German-American Genealogical Research Monograph No. 7; p.4. (Note: Frey on pp. 22-23 and Schoen on p. 19).

5. Filby, p. 1488.

6. Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church of Freistadt. Freistadt and the Lutheran Immigration. Mequon, Wisconsin: Freistadt Historical Society, 1998 reprint of 1989 edition, p. 50.

7. Ancestry.com, New York Passenger lists database, downloaded February, 2006.8. Wisconsin, Ozaukee County, Index to Probate Files, ca 1849-1900. FHL # 1309213.

9. Wisconsin, Ozaukee County, Probate Files A50- A72, A77-A86. FHL# 1320207. (Note: packets are not in a strict numerical order; keep going, A84 is near the end.)

10. (this note added 4 Jul 2013) Whoops! Today I was playing around and went back to look at the image of the NY Passenger List at ancestry. Previously, I had relied on the indexing for the transcription of the origin for Traugott, which said "Staadt West Indies."  No! It clearly says Staadt Wisconsin, which makes much more sense and is specifying that he was a resident of Wisconsin.