Ghost of Arthur Crown

Until recently, I haven't fully realized just how much history I was going to learn as a result of studying DNA matches. This time, I've spotted two matches to a Crown family who lived in the area of Meshoppen, PA starting in early 1830s, which predates the Great Famine.  So why did this Crown family leave Ireland to settle in a forested region 160 miles from NY or Philadelphia, which were the likeliest ports of arrival?

The answer is almost certainly Jobs. From 1828-1856, the North Branch Canal was built along the Susquehanna River for 169 miles between southern New York and north central Pennsylvania. But work was paused for about 10 years around 1840, and the workers, many if not most of them Irish, had to make a home.  So a handful of Irish settlers acquired land in/around what is today called Stowell, and which would become known as the Irish Settlement.

Although the Crowns are not listed among the early settlers of the Irish Settlement, Richard Crown and his wife Jane Gallagher lived in Meshoppen, 12 miles distant.  They had at least five children up through 1880. One of those children, Arthur Joseph Crown, 1837-1919, had descendants whose DNA is matching me as well as several other testers in my Crown family group.  I think it's fair to say these Meshoppen Crowns fit into our family tree some how, and maybe the very name of Arthur can give us a clue.

The earliest Irish record set I have found that applies to our Crowns is the Ireland Tithe Applotment Books.  There, in 1833 and 1835, an Arthur Crown was tithed in the Killasnet civil parish in the townland of Killymeehin, two miles from where Richard Crown lived in Pollboy.  However, by the time of the 1857 Griffith's Valuation, there was no trace of any Arthur Crown, nor is that name found again in subsequent record searches of that area of Ireland. Poof, gone. Who was Arthur Crown?

The disappearance of one Arthur Crown from Killymeehin in 1835, and the appearance of one Richard Crown in Pennsylvania about the same time could be a coincidence. But then subsequently, what are the odds that Richard Crown living in Pennsylvania would name a son Arthur?  What are the odds that DNA from descendants of Arthur Crown born in Pennsylvania would match descendants of Richard Crown and Sarah Meehan of Pollboy?  Odds are not my thing.  And DNA-matching, which happily lead us to this post, can be crazy-making when we consider the random nature of which and how much DNA is passed to each tester.  But history has a pliable framework in time and space, which, even for all the missing records, echoes.  To the listening ear, it facilitates imagining all the answers to our questions about the past. Perhaps Arthur Crown Sr. and Richard Crown, my ancestor, were brothers. Perhaps Arthur Sr. died in Ireland shortly after being tithed there, and his son, Richard, named for my ancestor, left Ireland for America. Perhaps once in America, Richard named his son for his father, Arthur. This could be one explanation for the evidence we have so far, but it is hardly the only possible explanation and we are light years away from any genealogical proof. But something tells me that the ghost of Arthur Crown who was tithed in Killymeehin in 1835 is following this story now.

The Journey

I am recently learning a great deal about early German culture in the Rheinland thanks to extremely informative articles posted by blogger Kathi Gosz.  I am also reading Kathi's book, House of Johann, which is a novel incorporating facts Kathi has discovered about her Rheinland ancestors and their lives.  I recommend these sources highly, and you will see me pointing to links of Kathi's work more than once.

With that said, I turn to the 1866 emigration application that was recently discovered.  Peter Schaefer was noted as Schreinergeselle, Schreiner indicating a joiner, and geselle indicating a journeyman.  Kathi's article provides an excellent introduction of Gesellen on der Walz.  We learn that the journey meant leaving the home village for three years and a day, and not being allowed to be within 30 miles of the home village during that time.  The journey meant wearing a uniform of sorts in order for the journeyman to be recognizable as such.  The color of his clothing and even the number of buttons on his vest and coat conveyed information about his trade and his available work days/hours.  He had no money, and so walked from place to place with his carved cane (Stenz), a small pack of work clothes, and a satchel of his tools.  He worked for free room and board wherever he went, and he was not allowed to be in any one place more than a few days.

What's most fascinating to me is that the journeyman also carried a Wanderbuch.  The book gave instructions for a journeyman's conduct, and served as a sort of passport, containing a description of the journeyman to help identify him to local police who had to be sure the stranger was not a beggar and was free of disease.  The Wanderbuch also served as a diary which recorded the dates and places of the journeyman's apprentice labor, and any comments from a master about quality of work.

So now let us imagine our Peter Schaefer.  He likely started to learn the trade when he was 14 years old, about 1857.  Who did Peter learn his trade from?  I have a feeling it was from somebody on his mother's side of the family.  I say this because the civil marriage record between Johann Schäfer and Margarethe Gipp in 1824 told us that Margarethe's father, Ludwig Gipp, who had died in 1805, had been a master carpenter.

Peter's initial trade training would have lasted 3-5 years. So let's say he started his trade journey in 1861 when he was 18 years old. But what about Peter's military obligation? Thanks to the Krümpersystem which was developed by the Prussians during the Napoleonic Wars, compulsory service was reduced to three years, and recruits were quickly trained and then sent to the reserves so more recruits could be trained.  Perhaps Peter received his military training, and then being in the reserves, embarked on his trade journey.  Perhaps the trade journey was interrupted by the Second Schleswig War in 1864, and most certainly by the Austro-Prussian War in 1866.  Perhaps, as with Kathi Gosz's ancestor, Peter determined that prospects for becoming a master joiner in Prussia were not promising. Peter's father, Johann, was apparently not a landowner, and so inheritance was likely not a factor to be considered in Peter's future. All these variables probably led Peter to extend his journey to North America.

Which leaves me with the unanswerable question:  Did Peter leave his Wanderbuch behind in Prussia, or did he bring it with him to America?  He would have had no use for it in America except perhaps as a resume and recommendation of his work.  If he brought it with him to America, what became of it?  If ever found, what more would it tell us about Peter Schaefer's incredible journey?

Sources:

• Tidbits Tell a Tailor's Story by Kathi Gosz
• Journeyman Years, wikipedia
• The Wander-Buch of Wilibald Koch by Peter Biggins
• German Journeymen and Wanderbuchs, Family Tree Tours
• Germany Occupations, familysearch

Peter Schaefer in the Prussian Army

After Napoleon's defeat in 1815, Rhineland became Rheinprovinz, part of the Kingdom of Prussia where all men were required to serve in the Prussian army.

"...law for universal conscription, by which men would successively serve in the standing army, the Landwehr and the local Landsturm until the age of 39."

Our gg-grandfather, Peter Schaefer, arrived in New York in May, 1867 at the age of 23. At that time and at that age, Peter needed to get permission to emigrate from Prussia or he simply fled illegally. Which was it? Peter got permission.

Thanks again to the extraordinary efforts of an experienced and generous German genealogist, we received from the Landeshauptarchiv in Koblenz a record dated December 1866 which indicated Peter Schäfer's service in the Prussian military. Although I still need a better understanding of the details of this record, we can determine that Peter had served in the 8th Army Corps, which had headquarters in Koblenz, and was the home of the 2nd Infantry Regiment (IR) from Rheinprovinz, No. 28 (28th infantry unit in the Prussian army). I cannot yet confirm that the 2nd IR was Peter Schäfer's unit, but it's a reasonable guess.

Based on my research, the uniform that Peter would have worn was called a Waffenrock. Here is an image that shows such a uniform at the time that Peter was in the army:

And what about Peter's military service? We know that the 2nd IR No. 28 fought in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 (this conflict was known by several names). That unit was part of the 15th Infantry Division, Army of the Elbe, numbering 39,000 troops. The Army of the Elbe was present at the following battles in 1866:

• 26 June - Hühnerwasser
• 28 June - Münchengrätz
• 3 July - Königgrätz

Königgrätz was the decisive battle of the conflict, won by Prussia.  History tells us that it was the largest battle fought in Europe during the 19th century with over 450,000 soldiers on the field. And yet, the Army of the Elbe, lost only 356 soldiers, with 1,234 wounded in action.  Possibly Peter was one of the wounded, or perhaps his service was simply complete by December, 1866.  Whatever the reason, Peter's military obligations were apparently discharged, and his emigration application was approved in January, 1867.

By April, 1867, Peter Schäfer departed from the port in Antwerp, Belgium aboard the ship called Maria S., leaving behind his parents and nine siblings.  He was a Catholic Prussian veteran who had helped defeat the Austrian Empire, which shortly thereafter lead to unification of the German Empire in 1871.  But Peter was also a carpenter, probably more accurately, a joiner.  Peter married in Brooklyn in 1870, started his family, and together with his brother, Philip, who had also emigrated in 1868, he headed 1,200 miles due west to settle in the rolling hills of Murray, Iowa.  Whatever Peter's reasons for leaving Prussia, he apparently did not look back, and the story of his life as a soldier was lost with his presumed death in Iowa before 1885.  But now we know more about the history that Peter Schäfer lived in Prussia before coming to America, and now we won't forget.

GGG-Grandfather Johann Schäfer, RIP

Sometimes it's hard to describe my genealogical journey. When I "discovered" Udenhausen in 2013, that knowledge and subsequent visit to that place seemed more than enough. We had found our Schaefer family origins, which was information lost to us for three generations. My mind and heart were full, and at that time I couldn't want more.

But with the time since 2013 comes experience that is colored by changing technology, which further enables access to clues that fire my curiosity. Remote DNA matches leading to databases of digitized records leading to online translators leading to German genealogists who still don't mind helping an American who wants to know more. This time I have the good fortune to find a German who's been doing genealogy over 20 years and knows all the local resources where records of our family history might be found. He called the local civil registry to inquire about records, he went to the copy center to scan a marriage certificate for me, he used his membership in the West German Society for Family Studies, and he contacted a local author of several familienbuchs in the area to make inquiries. All to help a stranger in America investigating one particular Schaefer family to whom he is not related. German generosity continues to both humble me and inspire me.

Thanks to these exchanges, we're learning about the parents of our ancestor, Peter Schafer, Johann Schäfer and Margarethe Gipp. Who were they? Johann was the son of a cow and pig herder (supposedly, research is ongoing), and we have record of him living in Udenhausen up through 1834 as a day laborer. But I've not been able to find any record of what happened to the Schaefers after that. Now it appears that Johann and Margarethe may have followed the path of their son, Gerhard. Gerhard was ordained a priest in 1853 in Trier. He was a chaplain at Speicher in 1855, and subsequently a pastor at Biersdorf (probably Biersdorf am See), Nohn, Retterath, and Illerich. After Udenhausen, we have now found record of Johann residing at Nohn, Retterath, and Illerich, places where Gerhard was pastor. In this last place, Johann had an apartment where he laid ill for six months before he died on 30 January 1880. He was apparently a widower by that time, and his age was thought to be 80. He was buried at Illerich, as was his son Gerhard, who later died in 1884.

But there is more subtle evidence about the life of our ggg-grandfather. On the 1869 marriage certificate of his daughter, Anna Maria, Johann Schäfer signed his name.

Johann was born at a time when Rhineland had been annexed by Napoleon. From the time of his birth until Napoleon's defeat in 1815, Johann Schäfer was a French citizen living in the French department called Rhin-et-Moselle. Napoleon effectively dismantled the ecclesiastical rule, implementing civil administration and a legal system for the first time. Equality under the law included compulsory schools. Johann was likely the first generation of Schaefers who learned to read and write, as did his children, three of whom were involved in teaching.

The French evacuated Rhin-et-Moselle on New Year's Eve 1814 when the Russians and Prussians moved in. In 1815, the area was assigned to the Kingdom of Prussia. Under Wilhelm I and his chancellor Otto Von Bismarck, Prussia was involved in multiple wars fought by all Prussian males ages 17-45 who were compelled to serve. But does that mean all Prussian males did serve? It could be that many Rhinelanders did not serve because they were considered too short!

Nevertheless, the wars involving Prussia took staggering tolls. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 resulted in over 900,000 soldiers of both sides killed, wounded, or captured, and 250,000 civilians killed including 162,000 Germans who died from a small pox epidemic brought by the French. By that time, three of Johann's younger children were in America — Anna, Philip, and Peter, and five years later they would be joined by the youngest in the family, Joseph. It seems nearly certain that these new German-Americans never saw their parents again.

So let us dedicate a moment to the memory of our ggg-grandfather, Johann Schäfer. He bore witness to so much during times that challenged the souls of humanity. May we continue to carry on with as much faith.

Anna Maria Times Two

In 2018, we discovered what became of Anna Maria Schäfer, a sister of my ancestor, Peter Schaefer:

• Anna Maria Schäfer, 1835-1906, wife of Joseph Adams, married and lived in Boppard.  Her daughter, Elisabeth Adams, married and lived in Nohn (the location of another Schäfer sibling, Elisabeth), and her son, Gerhard Adams, was the one who emigrated to Wisconsin, and whose descendants are a DNA match to me and others in my family.

Now to present day. I've been excited to learn recently that I share DNA with a number of Schäfers from the Eifel region of Germany who came to America in the 1800s, and specifically to the midwest:  Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Nebraska.  Sounds familiar, like my ancestor, Peter Schäfer and his brother, Philip, moving to Murray, Iowa. Was my ancestor related to all these other Schäfers emigrating to the American midwest? Among the German locales mentioned in my DNA matches are Mayen, Münk, Arbach, and Mannebach, but the vast majority of records can be found in Retterath. It appears that many generations of Schäfers were recorded living in the Retterath area, about 22 miles west of Udenhausen as the crow flies (no roads are that direct in this hilly region, so the travel distance was and is longer).

Imagine my surprise to discover a marriage record in 1869 between Peter Joseph Scheider, a teacher, and Anna Maria Schäfer, who was born in Udenhausen and was a daughter of Johann Schäfer and Margarethe Gipp. The marriage was in Retterath!

My first assumption was that Anna Maria who married Scheider in 1869 was the widow of Joseph Adams who died in 1866, but that was wrong. Thanks to correspondence with a Scheider researcher in Germany, we have the civil marriage certificate from Virneburg. It does not indicate that Anna Maria was previously married, and it would have if she had been. More than that, the marriage certificate indicates that Anna Maria as well as her parents, Johann and Margarethe, were living in Retterath at the time of the marriage.

So this new evidence gives us some new insights:

• Johann Schäfer and Margarethe Gipp were living in Retterath in 1869, not Udenhausen. It could be that the family was living there because that is where their son, Gerhard, a priest, was assigned. In fact, Gerhard performed the Scheider-Schäfer marriage! But how was my Schäfer family related to other Schäfers in Retterath who seem to be showing up as DNA matches? We don't yet know.
• The next important point is that we now clearly have two girls in the Schaefer family named Anna Maria: one born 1831, married Joseph Adams, lived in Boppard, died in 1906, and the other born 1835, married Peter Joseph Scheider, lived in Unkel, and died in 1885. My previous assumption was that the Anna Maria born in 1831 died as a child, and the next female child, born in 1835, was then named for her deceased sister. But my new German correspondent tells me that especially in this area of the Rhine, children were always named for their godparent. This article supports that idea.

Thus, in our Schäfer family, two girls named Anna Maria had a godmother named Anna Maria. Because I have yet to find baptism records of our family group, we don't know Anna Maria Who, and whether she was the same or a different woman for each child. Without access to libraries or archives (closed by cursed COVID pandemic), it could be awhile before we can search for and access additional records to give us more clues. But one thing seems clear — we have recovered a family member thought to have died in childhood. Welcome back to the Schäfer family history, Anna Maria #2!

A Crooked Crown with Links to Leitrim

The research summarized in this post stems from a DNA match not to me but to several other Crown/Travers relations including my dearly departed second cousin, M. Muldoon. (Click here to read about my genealogy adventures with her in 2013-14.) That match to her was with a person who has one Anthony Crown in his direct line of descent. Who was Anthony Crown?

It appears that Anthony Crown was born in Ireland (year of birth varies in documents), arriving in NYC around 1820. He married to Susan Ridgeway in 1838, and they lived in Ward 6 where Anthony was listed as a grocer and later a coal merchant. Anthony died in April 1857 leaving four children and a somewhat extensive estate to be managed by his wife.

This summary doesn't tell half the true story about Anthony Crown. Think of the 2002 movie Gangs of New York. Then look up a particular gang called Dead Rabbits. Then look up the word groggery. Then read about Crown's Corner Grocery, a groggery owned by Anthony Crown, which was nicknamed "The Gates of Hell" not just for moldy groceries and poisonous liquor but also for all kinds of immorality, savagery, and murder. The owner was known as an especially cruel person.

The story of Anthony Crown strikes me as both horrifying and fascinating. More digging required! It turns out that Anthony Crown had at least four siblings: Patrick, John, Ann, and Bridget. John died in 1844 at age 17. Patrick lived in Macon, GA starting around 1850, and he died there in 1886. Patrick left a will that named his deceased brother Anthony of NYC, his deceased sister Bridget Dowd and her two orphan daughters, and another sister, Ann Sweeney. Then we get to Patrick's gravestone in which was carved his birth place: Drumlease Parish, County Leitrim, the parish next-door to where our Richard Crown and Sarah Meehan lived and died. Wow. So in addition to the DNA match to my second cousin, now there's also circumstantial evidence that links the homeland of My Crowns to the family of the infamous Anthony Crown.

According to the 1855 NY state census, Anthony Crown had lived in NYC for 36 of his 38 years, making his arrival in NY around 1819 at the age of two. In addition, Anthony's will provided for his parents as well as his two orphan nieces who were then living with Anthony's parents. Who were the parents? Also living in Ward 6 were Charles and Bridget Crown, both born before 1800 in Ireland. Censuses show them living with their daughters of the names Sweeney and Dowd. Bingo. 

But the identity of Charles Crown is layered. Two death notices in NYC newspapers tell us:

• 1844 death notice of John, father Cormick, brother Anthony
• 1857 death notice of Cormick, father of Anthony dec, 82 years

Was Charles Crown the same person as Cormick Crown?  Apparently yes. The NYC Municipal death record reports the death of Charles Crowne on 23 May 1857 at 152 Leonard St (a house built by Anthony) at age 82. Charles was buried at a Catholic cemetery (Calvary) whereas Anthony was not (buried at Greenwood).

So many more questions are bubbling to the surface at this point, not the least of which is how this new Crown family group is related to mine. The progenitor of My Crowns was Richard Crown who died in Pollboy, Cloonlogher, Leitrim, Ireland in 1867. There is some question about Richard's approximate birth year, but I speculate that it was around 1796. Was Richard a son of Cormack/Charles who died in NYC in 1857? A nephew? A younger brother? I could speculate all day. We seem to be inching closer to a better understanding about our Crowns, but there is no end of intrigue when it comes to learning about their lives.

Kertzinger-Grimm French Relations

Wherever my family tree appears sparse, it's not just because of a brick wall. Sometimes it's because I had once stumbled upon evidence that made me believe the family story was bleak. This was the case with the pocket of matrilineal relations starting with my g-grandmother Marie Grimm, then to her mother Pauline Grimm, and then to her mother Salome Grimm, all three born out of wedlock in the Alsace region of France between 1835 and 1880. Surely all three generations must have endured sad circumstances. But did they? To some degree they did because the history of France in the 19th century was not exactly peaceful.  Suffice it to say that borders were changing back and forth, and soldiers, refugees, emigrants and immigrants were all on the move. Was there any "normal" family life? I thought surely not.

But today I think again. Finding a recent DNA match from this same line of unmarried Grimm women has caused me to review, and whenever that happens, there is always the chance of finding new records. It so happens that familysearch recently added some French records to their collections. Here's what I found:

First, it appears that Salome Grimm had more than one naturel child before she married. We know, of course, about Cecile Pauline Grimm, born in 1860. But next there came Joseph Charles Grimm born in 1862. Like Pauline's birth record, the registration for Joseph lists only the mother, and maternal grandparents. Did both these naturel children have the same father? We don't know.

Next, I looked a little closer at Mssr. Kertzinger. His birth record also lists only a mother and maternal grandparents. What's more, it appears that his mother, Madeline Kertzinger, also gave birth to two naturel children! Francois had an older sister, Clementine, born in 1841, also naturel. Apparently children born to single women was not so uncommon.

What seems subsequently remarkable, but probably wasn't, was that two people born naturel, Francois Henri Kertzinger and Salome Grimm, married, with Salome bringing with her two naturel children (Pauline and Joseph), presumably from a different father. But did Kertzinger and Salome Grimm have other children? They most certainly did:  Marie Madeline (1866), Clementine Caroline (1868), Salome Henriette (1871), Franz Heinrich (1873), Leonie Eugenie (1875), Albertine Pauline (1877), and Emilie (1879). Our Pauline was not so alone in the world! She had at least seven half-siblings and she was, as far as we know, the oldest of the bunch. I haven't yet determined what happened to all these Kertzinger half-sibs, but if any survived to carry on, they would all show up as DNA matches, being all descendants of Salome Grimm.

A final note about Mssr. Kertzinger. I noticed in the earlier records, he was named as Francois Henri. In later records, after 1871, he was named as Franz Heinrich, a name in fact given to his only son. Why is this? Because Alsace and Lorraine were lost to Germany in 1871. Like I said, this family lived squarely in the middle of tumultuous times. Curiously, even though the records show the family using German names after 1871, they all declared French citizenship in 1872.  Franz Heinrich Kertzinger died in Strasbourg in 1912.

As for Salome Grimm Kertzinger, she died in Strasbourg in 1904 at the age of 67.  I don't know if Salome had Kertzinger grandchildren by that time, but she definitely had grandchildren by her daughter, Pauline. After the death of Pauline's husband, Michael S. Klein, Pauline emigrated to New York with most of her children, except one - Emilie.  Emilie arrived in NY in 1905, almost 15 years old, with $1.50 in her pocket. Her mother, Pauline, a widow and washerwoman, had paid for her daughter's passage. It is my feeling that Emilie Klein was raised by her grandmother, Salome, and after Salome died, Pauline sent for her daughter to come to NY.

So this gives all new perspective to the succession of single Grimm women. Salome had two children out of wedlock, and seven more with Kertzinger. The Kertzinger-Grimm family were numerous and together. Then, Salome's oldest, Pauline, had one daughter out of wedlock, and at least three more children with Michael S. Klein before he died in Strasbourg in 1891. But what made Pauline, a recent widow, come to the US by herself  in 1892 with most of her young children, apparently pregnant again even before she left? We don't know. But she had lived through alot, and she was a strong woman. Pauline Grimm Klein wanted a chance for something better, and she clearly intended to move forward.

Happy Women's History Month!