The unexpected benefit of the way I’ve chosen to do the 52 Ancestors Challenge this year is that I come out knowing more about each of my ancestors than when I started to write the posts. When I came up with the idea, I thought it would simply be a matter of writing up my research.
Instead, the gaps in my research and lack of knowledge for most individuals became readily apparent when I started to write about them. I’ve ended up doing much more research than anticipated, and that’s been a great thing. It has helped me hone and practice my genealogy skills while fulfilling the primary reason I do the challenge, which is to write more. As I said back in March, it’s turned into participating in a second challenge – Yvette Hoitink‘s Level-Up Challenge!
The primary downside is that I spent several months many weeks behind in the Challenge this year. I finally caught up a few weeks ago, but largely only because I know so little about the final suit of my deck and there are so few readily available resources. Many of those individuals were barely above a “one” before writing them up over the last few weeks.
Case in point is my Great x3 Grandfather Valentine Schmidt. A few weeks ago, I had little more than a birthdate, a vague idea that he was born in the Beresan colonies of the Germans from Russia and the name of his spouse. However, I did have some additional information that I hadn’t incorporated into my database – some of which I’ve had for decades.
Valentine was born in 1839 in the Karlsruhe Colony of the Beresan district in Ukraine, which at the time was part of the Russian Empire. He was the seventh of 13 children born to Mathias Schmidt and Elisabetha Messer.
Matthias and Elisabetha were born in Alsace, which has a long history of moving between French and German control. Matthias was born in Röschwoog, which practically sits on the current French-German border, in 1806. At the time Matthias and Elisabetha were born, Alsace was firmly in the control of Napoleon. Matthias and Elisabetha most likely settled in the Beresan as teens, moving with their families. By 1819, they were both in Karlsruhe and by 1831 they were married, when they had their first child.
As far as I know, Valentine lived his whole life in Karlsruhe. He married Margaretha “Regina” Boechler on October 21, 1863. They had at least two children that I have researched and who have some sort of documented sources – my Great x 2 Grandmother Barbara and a younger sister named Elisabeth. While FamilySearch tells me that there were four more children after Elisabeth, not a single source has been cited for any of them.
Valentine was still alive in 1894, when his father passed away. He was also most likely still in Karlsruhe, which means he was still there when his daughter Barbara and son-in-law Michael Lerner emigrated to America.
Since Valentine was still alive well into his 50s and at the time his daughter emigrated, I considered whether he had also emigrated to America, particularly given the lack of evidence he died in Karlsruhe. However, I have never found anything indicating that occurred.
A Deck of Ancestors 