Our Clancy Clan in NY

I have often wondered what inspired Patrick Crown to come to NY when he did, thinking there might have been some Crown relations who preceded him there. But as has often turned out true throughout our family history, it was not just the male side of the family that effected change, it was also the female side. Indeed, it turns out that some of Ann Clancy's siblings were in Flatbush, NY before the American Civil War, and the rest of Ann's immediate family, including her mother, Jane Gilroy Clancy, came over after the war in the mid-1860s. In fact, our Ann might even have been the last in her immediate family to come to America (we're not sure when her brother Lackey arrived, some time before 1875).

Learning about our Clancy family is a work in progress, but here's what I have gleaned so far:

• Joanna "Jane" Gilroy, 1814-1894, married to Charles Clancy in Ireland, and was apparently a widow by the time of the 1857 Griffiths Valuation in Barr of Farrow, Cloonclare, Leitrim, Ireland. She probably arrived in NY in 1865 when she was in her early 50s, accompanied by her youngest daughter, Margaret, 18.
• Catherine Clancy, 1833-1892, married an older real estate dealer, Roger Clancy (we don't know yet if he was related); she did not have children who survived her.
• John Clancy, 1837-1898, married Mary Clancy in NY (again we don't know yet if she was related); they had 8 children.
• Mary Clancy, 1840-1903, married in NY first John Collins who died by 1875, they had 4 children; married second Robert Martin. Supposedly Mary's first child, Mary, was born in New York in 1858, which would mean her mother emigrated before that, thus implying the earliest date of our Clancy family in America (so far).
• Ann Clancy, 1842-1888, married Patrick Crown in Ireland in 1860, arrived in NY just before 1870. As we know, they had 9 children.
• Malachy Clancy, 1844-1896, also known as Lackey as well as by his Americanized name of Alex or Alexander, married in NY to Ann Murphy in 1876; they apparently had 4 children, none of whom survived.
• Manus Clancy, 1845-1914, a real estate dealer, never married.
• Margaret Clancy, 1847-1910, married in NY to Thomas Rooney, they had 7 children.

There's a possibility of other children who belonged to this family group, in particular one James Clancy, born abt 1831 who married Catherine Murphy. James died in Ireland, but his children also later came to America and seem to have ties to this family group. Research is ongoing.

Meanwhile back in Brooklyn, in 1881 Patrick Crown purchased property on East New York Ave. from his sister-in-law, Catherine Clancy Clancy, who had just been widowed at that time. Patrick paid $600, and so far, that transaction is the earliest deed record I can find of Crown-owned properties in Brooklyn. There's no question, however, that our Crown legacy in Brooklyn got its start from our Clancy roots.

The Non-Existent Crown Child

I've heard stories about how some genealogies contain names of people who never existed, and I always wondered how that could even be possible. But now I think I just caught myself in the very act! Here's how.

As I have long stated, Patrick Crown and Ann Clancy had six children before coming to America, among them two sets of twins, the last set born just before the emigration to NY. How do I know that? From the 1870 census of Flatbush which shows the six Irish-born Crown children: Richard, 10; Sarah, 6; Charles and Kate, 4; and John and Patrick, 1. Other interesting notes of this census are that Mrs. Clancy, 60, (probably Ann's mother, see previous post) seems to have been head of household, and Ann's husband, Patrick Crown, does not seem to be accounted for.

But now that many of the Irish records are coming online, I've been able to look up the birth records for those six Crown children born in Ireland, and lo, I found only five: Richard, Sarah, Charles, Kate, and John. Especially if John was a twin of Patrick, then the two would have been baptized and registered at the same time. But no, only John. How strange.

Going back to NY, I remembered that the Crown children who died young were named on the family gravestone at Holy Cross. Sure enough, there are the names Margaret, Catherine, John, and Manus "who died young." No Patrick. There is no doubt in my mind that if Patrick and Ann had a son named Patrick who died young, his name would have been included on that gravestone.

So! No birth record in Ireland for Patrick Crown born in 1869, nor mention of him on the family gravestone in Brooklyn. I am coming to the conclusion that there was never a child born to Patrick and Ann named Patrick. In that case, who was the Patrick Crown, age 1, enumerated on the 1870 census? I have no explanation other than error by the census-taker. Patrick Crown, the adult, was probably not home at the time of enumeration, but his name was mentioned. And with so many kids running (or crawling) around, were there five or were there six? The census said six, but there really were only five. Lesson learned: every single genealogical record found needs to be corroborated in some way.

So for our family record, I am removing the name of Patrick Crown, b. 1869, from the family tree of Patrick Crown and Ann Clancy. May this non-existent child RIP.

Discovering Clancys of Barr of Farrow

I'm learning alot about Irish geography in the last month or so as I've been trying to group Crown families by location. You can find some very useful maps of districts, parishes, and townlands in counties Leitrim and Roscommon here.

My research has centered in Drumahaire barony where the Crown's and Travers lived in the 1800s, with most concentration in the the Drumlease civil parish. But records for Crown can also be found in the surrounding Leitrim parishes of Killanummery, Killarga, Cloonlogher, Killasnet, and even though not immediately bordering Drumlease, also Cloonclare. In fact, this last parish is where we believe we located the 1860 marriage record of our ancestors who later emigrated to NY, Patrick Crown and Ann Clancy.

However, two things have subsequently brought my attention back to Cloonclare.

• While looking at Clancy families that were enumerated nearby to our Crown family in Brooklyn, I wondered if they were somehow related. One Clancy family tree I found which seems to connect to those early Brooklyn Clancy families documents them as coming from Farrabar, Cloonclare, Leitrim, Ireland. Hmmmm.
• In a separate exercise, I was looking up the Ireland civil birth registrations for the children that Patrick Crown and Ann Clancy had before they emigrated to NY. The civil registrations give the address where the couple was living when the child was born, and interestingly for two of Patrick and Ann's children, the address of the parents was listed as Farrabar. Hmmmm.

So what about this place, Farrabar? Further investigation has lead me to a place in Cloonclare parish that was called Barr of Farrow (in Irish, Barr Fharaidh) and/or Farrow Barr (Farrabar), located in the D.E.D. (district electoral division) called Glenboy and the PLU (poor law union) of Manorhamilton.

And what about this other family tree? It documented its Irish ancestors as Charles Clancy and Jane McElroy. In searching for a couple with those names in County Leitrim, I did not find a marriage record, but I found several children born in Cloonclare parish to Charles Clancy and Joanna (sometimes Anne) Gilroy. Seems to me that Gilroy is very close to McElroy, and Jane could be the familiar version of the Latin name Joanna.

In checking the 1834 Ireland Tithes records in the Barr of Farrow, there were SIX Clancy men listed, and of immediate interest were Charles Sr. and Charles Jr. In moving on to the 1857 Griffiths Valuations in Barr of Farrow, there was no listing of any Charles Clancy, but lo and behold, there was listed Jane Clancy! Either Jane was a widow by then or maybe Charles preceded the family to NY? Either way, these early Irish documents establish there were indeed a Charles and Jane Clancy from Barr of Farrow!

All of which is very interesting, but even though I have a passing reference to Farrabar in Irish records of Crown, there is really nothing that ties my Ann Clancy Crown to Charles Clancy and Jane Gilroy. Until today. Today I revisited the baptism record of the first child of Patrick and Ann, Richard. Here is my transcription of the Irish baptism record which was written in Latin:

8 July 1860, Richard, child of Patrick Crown and Ann Clancy, 

sponsors Richard Crown and Joanna Gilroy.    

OMG. I always thought that the male sponsor was either Patrick's father or his brother, but I had no earthly idea about the female sponsor.  Now, thanks to the sharing of another researcher's family tree, I do! I now think the sponsors of Richard Crown were his grandparents, Patrick's father and Ann's mother.  Wow.

So there we have it. Happily, we now have a whole new story to explore, and likely more relations to meet! I'm still researching, but it appears to me that Patrick and Ann might have come over to NY with Ann's mother, Jane, who very likely was the older woman enumerated as Mrs. Clancy in the Patrick Crown household in 1870. After that, Jane may have gone to live with other Clancy relations, as it appears that she probably had other children also in NY. Jane Gilroy Clancy died in Flatbush in 1894, after her daughter, Ann Clancy Crown, who died in 1888. Jane was around the age of 80 when she died, and like all our early Crown relations, she was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery.

I'm a little stunned. I think about my father, Richard Charles Schaefer. The second son of my grandmother, Peg Crown, my father was definitely named for the Irish. Not only did Nana have a brother named Richard who died young, she also had two uncles, Richard and Charles, who were by all accounts bigger than life and who both died after Nana was married. And now we know something about how the Crown uncles Richard and Charles were named: one for our Irish ancestor Richard Crown, and the other for our Irish ancestor Charles Clancy. Amazing.

Crowns in Manorhamilton & Lurganboy

Imagine my surprise when I came upon a picture of Crown's Bar on Castle Street in Manorhamilton in 1910. Those pictured are Katie Reily, Mary Crown, and Kate Crown. These Crown women are related to the John Crown branch of the family, known as the "Crowns of Manorhamilton". Indeed, my correspondence with one of their descendants describes the Crown's Bar on Castle Street!  Mary, the older woman in the middle, was Mary Rooney, widow of John Crown, the latter having died before 1901. Kate Crown was one of their daughters.  And, according to the 1901 Ireland census, Katie Reilly was a niece of Mary Rooney Crown, and she was born in the USA. I don't know enough about the Rooney side to figure that one out yet.

Meanwhile, in nearby Lurganboy, some similar business was run by those in the Anthony Crown branch of the family. Here is a 2004 article from the Leitrim Observer:

END OF AN ERA IN LURGANBOY

The end of an era in Lurganboy was signalled last week when the former homestead of the Crown family was demolished to make way for a new housing development in the centre of the village.

As well as being the home of the Crown family, the premises also contained a very successful shop run by the family for many years until the end of late '60s and early '70s when it ceased trading.

Afterwards the owner of the building Dickie Crown converted the building into a number of apartments, which provided much needed accommodation for the Lurganboy and Manorhamilton areas for over three decades.

Dickie also converted his loft at the rear of the Crown residence into two apartment buildings in the early 70's and this building was also knocked down last week, to facilitate the new housing development in Lurganboy. Crown's loft was a Mecca for all leisure activities in the village area in the first half of the last century.

As this was before rural electrification gas lighting was used. In the loft classes in woodwork took place (given by Mr McIntyre) while spinning, poultry keeping and cookery classes were also held (taught by Miss Houghton).

Irish dancing classes also took place here when the instructor was Sean MacLiam who later became Brother Pascal in the Franciscan Friary in Rossnowlagh. Music for these classes was supplied by John Mitchell on the accordion and John Thady Rooney on the fiddle.

Dances were also held on Crown's loft where the music was provided sometimes by a gramophone or by Leddy's Band from Killargue. One night when a parochial bazaar was in progress the loft floor collapsed but luckily Dickie Crown had the store beneath full of turf, otherwise everyone would have landed on the ground floor.

The Crown family moved out of their former residence to a new adjacent house a number of years ago. Dickie Crown is currently a patient in St John's Hospital in Sligo and his sisters Betty, Doreen and Florie reside in Lurganboy while another sister, Ita resides in New York and their late brother, Jack Crown after leaving Lurganboy also resided in New York before returning to live in Dublin.

Jack's son, Dr John Crown is one of Ireland best respected Oncologists who has been to the forefront of new treatment techniques for cancer patients throughout the country. Dr John was born in Brooklyn, New York but the family returned when he was ten to Ireland where he afterwards went on to study medicine.

After qualifying as a doctor he returned to New York where he specialised in cancer treatment. During his years working at the world renown Sloan Kettering Hospital he founded and ran a bone marrow transplant programme, to assist in the treatment and research of women's cancer.

However Dr Crown returned to Ireland in 1993 when he took an appointment in St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin Oncology Department where he continues his good work. He also lectures all over the world on oncology topics.

After last week's demolition of the former Crown family residence in Lurganboy the landscape of the village will be quite different in the future.

But while the Crown family residence is no more countless people will recall fondly the major contribution that the members of this local family have made to all aspects of life in the village and indeed much further afield, over very many years. 

http://www.leitrimobserver.ie/news/local-news/manorhamilton-community-news-1-2025285

Updated on the 10 November
2004
15:11

Published 10/11/2004 10:11

Meanwhile, across the ocean in Brooklyn, NY, our Crown relations were carrying on in much the same business.  It seems good Irish hospitality was more than a decent way to make a living!

Happy Crown Anniversary

It took awhile, but I finally found the marriage record of my ancestors, Patrick Crown and Ann Clancy in Clooneclare Parish, County Leitrim, Ireland on 9 July 1860.

I almost missed this record for two reasons:

1. the spelling of the Crown surname. As I have suspected, the original spelling was Croghan (see previous post).
2. this particular priest appears to have written what is normally a "C" as a "K" !!! So Croghan appears written as Kroghan and Clancy appears as Klancy. I don't have much explanation for that. Although the record is written in Latin, it wasn't, to my knowledge, a Latin rule to interchange the letters "K" and "C".....

I can't quite make out the witnesses to this marriage. The first seems to be Charles Meehan (Patrick's mother's family) and the second could be a Maria Clancy.

So here we are, 156 years later. Without Patrick and Ann, there would be no me blogging about Crown relations.... Patrick and Ann had five kids before leaving Ireland around 1870, including a set of twins. Only three of those five survived to adulthood:

• Sarah Crown McDermott, who died shortly after giving birth to her first child
• Richard and Charles, both, apparently, life-long bachelors.

Patrick and Ann never returned to Ireland (that we know of), and lived the rest of their lives in Brooklyn, NY, adding four more children to the family, two of whom survived:

• John J. Crown - the first child of the next generation to be born in America, my g-grandfather, and
• Annie Crown Connors, who also left many descendants.

Happy Anniversary to our gg-grandparents!

Claiming McDermotts

In searching through the old Brooklyn Eagle newspaper for something else entirely, I ran across the death notice of a Sarah Crown, died Dec 19, 1894, daughter of Patrick and Ann, and wife of Patrick McDermott! I was surprised by this because we last saw Sarah Crown as single in the 1892 NY census. So she had not been married long, but had she had any children?

The answer is yes, George Patrick McDermott, born on  5 Dec 1894, two weeks before Sarah's death. George's father, Patrick McDermott, later remarried and had more children, and most other genealogies include George as a son of Patrick and his second wife. But no, George P. McDermott definitely had a Crown mother who was born in County Leitrim, Ireland. And George went on to live a full life, joining the service during WWI, then marrying and having five children and a number of grandchildren before his death in 1951. It will be fun to see if we can find some living descendants from this newest Crown cousin.

Note: George McDermott was alive during at least half of my grandfather's lifetime.  Is this where the name George came from?

So this is quite the news for our branch of the Brooklyn Crown's. We have believed that from the nine children of Patrick and Ann, only two of the nine had their own children whose descendants carry on today - namely John J. Crown (my ancestor), and Annie Crown Connors. Ahhhh, but now we know there was also Sarah Crown McDermott who died shortly after the birth of her first child. How sad a day it must have been for Patrick Crown, by then a widower, to lose his oldest daughter who was so recently married and still so young (30). But Sarah's son, George P. McDermott, was the only grandson Patrick would know before his own death in 1903 (two granddaughters would also come along from John J. Crown before 1903). Even so, Patrick's will made no mention of any grandchildren .....

Sarah Crown McDermott is buried in the Crown family plot at Holy Cross with her parents and a number of her siblings.

Our Brooklyn Crowns - RIP

I last visited the Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn in January of 2010. At that time, I was just beginning to learn about my Crown grandmother's family, and I thought it was a miracle to find the family grave of my g-grandfather, John J. Crown, and 8 other Crown and Connors relations. Awesome.

But alot has happened since then, and I have learned a great deal more about the previous generation of Crowns, the ones who emigrated to New York around 1870 from County Leitrim, Ireland. Patrick Crown and Ann Clancy had five children in Ireland before emigrating, and four more after that. What happened to them all?

Well, as time marches on, the Catholic Cemeteries of the Diocese of Brooklyn have now listed their burials online. It turns out that Patrick and Ann, and five of their children are also buried at Holy Cross - I just didn't know to look for them back in 2010! We should also remember four of their children buried in the same plot who did not survive to adulthood: Catherine, John, Manus, and Margaret. The interment date for all these children is October 11, 1888, which is a puzzlement to me because I have death records for Catherine and John shortly after arrival in 1870. (In fact, my g-grandfather, John J. Crown, was probably named for his brother, John, who died shortly before my g-grandfather's birth). It's true that 1888 was a hard year for Brooklyn with over 1400 deaths from typhoid fever as well as a small pox epidemic going around. When our gg-grandmother died in July 1888, it seems possible that one or both of the other younger children, Manus and Margaret, also perished, and Patrick decided to buy a bigger plot at Holy Cross. My guess is that he moved the graves of his other children and they were all interred with their mother at the Holy Cross family grave. Patrick would join them there in 1903.

So now we know where our Irish emigrant ancestors are buried. Between these two graves at Holy Cross, we have accounted for both the gg-grandparents as well as their nine children, including the spouses of the two children who married, as well as three of their grandchildren (one being Richard J. Crown who died in childhood and for whom my father was named). All these people who traveled so far to build a new way while also facing so many struggles and so much suffering - it was not easy. May they be remembered by us and may they rest in peace.

And with all that said, now that we have a database to look at, I can't help but notice there are a number of other Crowns buried at Holy Cross, several with much earlier burial dates. Were these Crowns related to us? Is it possible that when Patrick came to New York, he already had other family there? Well, it's alot to ponder, and while I'll always be curious, I'm at the moment feeling satisfied with learning what we have in the last few years about our remarkable Crown family.

Travers Families of Early St. Louis

My recent correspondents have included a Travers researcher whose work has helped to clarify some confusions about some with the Travers surname appearing in St. Louis in the 1880s.

1. There were TWO Travers families who intermarried and either came to U.S. or some of their descendants did:

• JOHN TRAVERS & MARY DOHERTY (family group 1)
• LACKY TRAVERS & BRIGID CROWN (family group 2)

These families are believed to have come from the same area of County Leitrim, Ireland and thus are very likely related, but this researcher has so far not found the connection, so it might be pretty far back.

2. For our Crown story, two siblings from the children of each family group intermarried.  It can be and is confusing, so when you look at my tree now, you'll see a single asterisk next to the siblings from group 1, and a double asterisk next to the siblings from family group 2.  The siblings that married after arrival in St. Louis were:

• Mary Ann Travers* and Patrick Travers**
• Michael J Travers/Travis* and Mary Ann Travers**

The story is that both couples married on the same day, 19 Oct 1886 in St. Louis, the sibs being witnesses to each other's marriage (documentation of this has been confirmed).  The children of these two couples are related to us Crown's through Lacky and Brigid, but all the other Travers from group 1 would not be Crown-related (that we know of).

Philadelphia Crowns

When we look at the five known children of Richard Crown and Sarah Meehan (Brigid, Cormac, Patrick, Richard, and John), only one of those five came, himself, to America, and that was my ancestor, Patrick Crown. Of the remaining children of Richard and Sarah, it was the grandchildren from three of the remaining four progeny, Brigid, Cormac, and Richard, who emigrated to the USA. It could well be that descendants of John Crown also emigrated at some point, but information on this branch of the family is, at this point, the most limited.

But even among those children who remained in Ireland, we are now finding that some of THEIR children emigrated to America at a later time. For example, one of the sons of Brigid Crown and Lacky Travers, Thomas, appears to have remained in Ireland. Thomas and wife Elizabeth McMorrow are thought to have had at least five children, three remained in Ireland, and the other two - the oldest and youngest girls, both nurses - emigrated to the Philadelphia region prior to July, 1931, when the sisters were both naturalized as American citizens. Both sisters, Bridget "Tressa" Travers Lynch, and Elizabeth Travers Doherty, married in America, and so far it appears that Tressa did not have children, but Elizabeth most definitely did. I'm still researching this line, but it seems apparent that Philadelphia was yet another settling destination for our American Crown's and their descendants.

More Crown Cousins

The last month has been a flurry of correspondence with various newly-discovered Crown relations. It started with yet another DNA match, which appears to lead back to some living relations in Ireland!  This connection is through a sibling of our Crown immigrant to NY, Patrick Crown, who came to Brooklyn in 1870. Patrick's sister, Brigid (Bridget) Crown Travers, is the one whose descendants are suddenly popping up!

All of which has lead to more DNA comparisons! Here's what we have so far. Note that the following Crown's are thought to be siblings, children of Richard Crown and Sarah Meehan, and the DNA samples noted all show up as extremely high matches to one another:

• Patrick Crown and Ann Clancy (my branch) - 2 samples from U.S.
• Brigid Crown and Malachy [Lacky] Travers - 7 samples, 3 from Ireland, 4 from U.S.
• Richard Crown and Kate Mclaniff - one U.S. sample
• Cormac Crown and Kate Foley - no samples yet
• John Crown and Mary Rooney - no samples yet

Even though we've slowly been finding more documentation, the truth is that because of the record destruction in Ireland in 1922, it's very likely that we'll have to rely on DNA samples to supplement the documentation in order to piece together our Crown family. I would like to invite anybody who believes they are descended from any of these branches to please consider contributing to the growing pool of Crown DNA samples.

Meanwhile, the correspondents I've been meeting lately are all connected to Brigid Crown and Lacky Travers, the only line we are trying to track through a female Crown ancestor! Brigid and her husband, Malachy (anglicized to Loughlin) Travers, are thought to have had at least nine children:  three remained in Ireland (Thomas, Lacky Jr., and James), four came to America (three to St. Louis - Patrick, Mary, and Sarah, and one to San Francisco - Richard), and the fate of the remaining two children - Bridget and Ann - remains unknown. All of these recent correspondents have interesting stories and clues to add to the pot as we continue the quest to rediscover the story of the Crown family of County Leitrim (and probably Roscommon before that).

Madame Anna Ozioni

The one thing I can say about our Schaefer family is that just when you think you know their story, there's still more to tell. As we know, there has been alot to discover in the last several years. First we find our home village in Germany where there are still living relations, then we find out there were FOUR Schaefer siblings who came to America: not just our Peter, and not just his brother Philip who also migrated to Iowa, but another brother, Joseph, as well as a sister Anna. We've been able to track the brothers, mostly, but the one and only trace of sister Anna was the 1880 census where her newly-arrived brother Joseph was staying with her. Anna was, at that point, a widow with a surname of something like Bisell, and she was a teacher. I've tried and tried to figure out what happened to Anna, but to no avail. Until familysearch started indexing death certificates from the NYC Municipal Archives. Just for fun, go to familysearch, do not enter any name, but click on Parents and for the Father, type "Joh*" "Schafer" and for the Mother, type "Marg*" "Gipp", then click Search.  Curiously, up pops three of the four siblings who emigrated from Udenhausen to NY (I have no idea why the marriage record for our Peter is not matching, but it should show up there as well bcs he was married to Maria Vierling on the same day that Philip married Therese Etringer).

OK, so the surprise this time around is Anna. OZIONI?? If she was a widow of the name Bissel in 1880, then she remarried. And with a name like Ozioni, it didn't take long to find her in the NY City directories, wife of Ernesto. But then sadly, he also died prematurely in 1891. So there was Anna, alone again, and apparently without children. And what was she doing? Running an Art Embroidery shop on Columbus Ave. It was a fancy place, but from what I can tell, Anna was probably having trouble making ends meet. There is a newspaper article about how she pulled a revolver on a customer who refused to pay, and then a month later there is an ad about her shop being auctioned. Apparently, however, she continued to make her living by teaching art embroidery - which is the last occupation we see for her in the 1910 census, the year she died at the age of 69. She is buried at St. John's cemetery, where her brother Joseph and her nephew, our g-grandfather, Charles, are also buried.

But here's what strikes me as funny. Ernesto Ozioni was Austrian, and who was the witness on his American naturalization? Joseph Schaefer. But that's not the funny part. And where was Ernesto residing before sailing to America? Trieste, Italy, where my sister and I visited in 2011. But that's still not the funny part. All newspaper accounts I find pertaining to Anna and her embroidery shop call her "Mme. Ozioni" and they even imagine her threatenting conversation with her cheap-skate customer at gunpoint with French accent: "Oh ze gran' ladie will not pay, eh? Zen she will not leave ze store until she do pay, eh?"  omg, too too funny. Anna could not have been more German, and yet because she was trained as a teacher, it's likely that she did study French. Perhaps her merchant-husband and she decided that presenting the shop as having a French proprietor would help sales? I can only imagine.  But maybe now you can see what I mean when I say you can never underestimate the interesting lives of our Schaefer clan.

Eisemann Home

I recently ran across some church records from the St. Paul Lutheran Church in Brooklyn, New York. These records, written in German, amazingly give details about the origins of their members, one of whom was our ancestor, Carl (Charles) Eisemann. For us, this means that we now know the German homes of our third great-grandparents:

• Johann Friedrich Carl EISENMANN, aka Carl/Charles Eisemann, born 20 Oct 1834 in Trauzenbach, Rems-Murr-Kreis, Württemberg, Germany 
• Elisabeth MÜLLER, born 3 Nov 1833 in Rehborn, Rheinpfalz, Bayern, Germany 

What's even more amazing is that I found a correspondent in Germany who has been able to confirm the Eisenmann connection. He explained:

In the 19th century you will find either the spelling EISEMANN or EISENMANN for the same family. This depends on the pronunciation in the Wuerttemberg idiom [dialect] "Swabian".

Trauzenbach is not easy to find on today's maps. If you can find Frankenweiler, you're close (you have to play with different zoom levels if using google maps). Another village to look for is Eschenstruet; Trauzenbach is directly east from there.

The story of our Eisemann family on the Germany side tells us that Carl was orphaned by the time he was 6 years old. We're not sure where he lived for the rest of his childhood, but it appears that he arrived in New York by himself at the age of 21. I believe it was in NY (Long Island) that he married and started his family of 11 children, the oldest girl being our 2nd g-grandmother, Katharine Eisemann who would some day marry Johann Friedrich Kaiser, a family that would later cross paths with the Irish Crown's of Brooklyn. What a story!

As an aside, if you have any ancestors who come from the Murrhardt area northeast of Stuttgart, you might find your ancestor's name here. You might also be able to help the person who posted this website. He is compiling an Ortsfamilienbuch for the area, and wants to include information about families who emigrated to America. This work will be multiple volumes and approximately 2800 pages! If you contact him, be sure to tell him Vielen Dank!