Category: Germans from Russia

52W Mark V – Week 4: Elisabetha Messer and Mathias Schmidt

Elisabetha Messer (1813-1883) and Mathias Schmidt (1806-1894)

I amused myself just now when I jotted down the surnames I’d be writing about this week: Messer and Schmidt. Combined, they are similar to the surname “Messerschmitt”, which is also the name of a well-known aircraft manufacturer. However, instead of airplanes, the topic of discussion is my Gx4 Grandparents, Elisabetha Messer and Mathias Schmidt.

Now that we’ve established that I can be easily distracted or amused or both, let’s turn to Elisabetha and Mathias.

Elisabetha was born in Alsace in 1813. Other than that her father was Bernard Messer, also of Alsace, I don’t know who Elisabetha’s mother was or whether she had any siblings. Sometime in her childhood or teens she moved with her family to one of the German colonies in the Beresan district of Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian Empire. I came to that conclusion because Mathias was already in the Beresan when he married Elisabetha sometime around 1831. Elisabetha was about 18 years old when she married.

Mathias was also born in Alsace, in the village of Röschwoog, which now sits inside France about five kilometers from the German border. Mathias’s father was Paul Schmidt; I don’t know who his mother was. Mathias was a middle child, with an older brother, Jakob, and a younger brother, Martin. It may be that there were other children, but I have not seen any indication either way. The family moved from Alsace to Karlsruhe colony in the Beresan in 1819, when Mathias was 13 years old.

Elisabetha and Mathias married sometime before 1831, possibly in Landau colony, where the first of their 13 children were born. All their subsequent children were born in Karlsruhe. The youngest was born 25 years later, in 1857. My Gx3 Grandfather, Valentine, was born right in the middle, with six older and six younger siblings.

Elisabetha died in Karlsruhe on October 8, 1883. Mathias died in Karlsruhe almost exactly eleven years later, on October 3, 1894.

While it might seem abrupt after only four weeks, this brings us to the end of my Great x4 Grandparents on my mother’s maternal line. Next week I switch to my Great x4 Grandparents on my mother’s paternal line, which is the Mormon branch of my family.

52W Mark V – Week 3: Katherine Geiger and Gregor Bechler

Katherine Geiger (?-?) and Gregor Bechler (1819-?)

I can’t remember when I first came across the name of my Great x4 Grandmother, Katherine Geiger, but I do recall I was fascinated by her from the moment I learned of her. I cannot recall why. My interest in Katherine was further piqued in the early 1990s, when I met someone by the same name. I had never before met anyone with the surname Geiger – and have not again since – so it captured my attention when I met someone with the same first name as my great grandmother as well.

Despite my low-key enchantment with Katherine, I know almost next to nothing about her. Usually the task with genealogy is to treat the dash between the birth and death as a blank to be filled in. In this case, all I have is the tiniest bit of the dash.

Katherine married Gregor Bechler somewhere in the Beresan district of what is now Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, likely sometime before 1844. Katherine had three children with Gregor: Margaretha (my Gx3 Grandmother), Jakob, and Andreas. Katherine passed away, likely in Karlsruhe, Beresan, sometime before 1854, when Gregor – a widower – remarried.

Turning to Gregor, I know somewhat more about him. As I noted before, in the old country, the surname was spelled “Bechler” and “Boechler” in the new world.  So when I first learned of Gregor many decades ago, it was in a book about Boechler immigrants to North America, so he was entered as “Boechler”. However, I see no indication that he ever went by that spelling .

Gregor was most likely born in Karlsruhe, Baden in 1819, the youngest of the four children of Michael Bechler (1776-1852) and Elisabetha Hoffman (1782-?). Shortly after Gregor was born, his family moved to Karlsruhe colony in the Beresan district.

After Katherine passed away, Gregor married a woman by the name of Marianna, who was likely nine years older than Gregor. While that puts Marianna in her mid-40s at the time she married Gregor, she had two children with him, Katharina and Franz.

I don’t know when Marianna passed away, but she may have lived into her late 60s. She must have passed away sometime before 1879, because on November 11, 1879 Gregor married for a third time. He married a woman named Apollonia Loran, who was a widow. I have no idea how long Gregor and Apollonia were married, as I do not know how long either of them lived.

Before concluding this outline of what I know about Katherine and Gregor, I do want to revisit a photo that I long believed showed the two of them with their children. I first saw it in Boechler Family History, by Tim Boechler and Annette Boechler. I believe I found the version I’ve reproduced here on FamilySearch, with the caption purporting to identify the individuals in the photo.

However, the caption cannot be accepted at face value. It is quite contrary to what information I have about Gregor, his wives, and his children. Of significance, that cannot be Katherine. It must be Marianna. The 1858 Karlsruhe census states Katherine died in 1853 and that Gregor married Marianna by 1854. The census includes Gregor’s five children, two of whom were born after 1853 (Katharina, Franz). Given that the photo has children born after 1853, that cannot be Katherine in the photo.

The information about the children is inaccurate as well and is inconsistent with the 1858 census. The most glaring error relates to Margaretha. She was Gregor’s eldest child, but the caption identifies her as the youngest. If Phillip and John (both born after 1858) are the youngest, it cannot be Margartha (or any girl) on the woman’s lap. The caption also doesn’t include Katherina, Marianna’s first child, but it is possible she had died before the photo was taken.

Overall, the most I can say is that the photo might be Gregor Bechler, his second wife Marianna, and Gregor’s children with Katherine and Marianna.

52W Mark V – Week 2: Marianna Schmidt and Johannes Anton

Marianna Schmidt (1820-1893) and Johannes Anton (1818-1885)

Until recently, I had thought that my Great x4 Grandparents, Marianna Schmidt and Johannes Anton, were most likely from Mörlheim, Landau, Rhinepalatinate before settling in a German colony at Karlsruhe, Beresan District, Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian Empire. I have since learned otherwise, at least for Johannes.

Marianna was born about 1820. I actually do not know where Marianna was born, or who her parents might have been. The only real information I have about Marianna’s birth is her registration of death, which states that she was 73 years old when she died. I suspect Marianna was born in the Beresan and it was her parents who emigrated from the German states.

Likewise, while I know that Johannes was born in 1818, I cannot say for certain where he was born. However, I do suspect that he was born in the Beresan. Johannes was born to Peter Anton (1797-before 1858) and Maria Anna Hatzenbühler (1786-after 1858) and had three younger sisters. Peter and Maria Anna were both born in the Rhinepalatinate – Peter in Mörlheim, Maria Anna in Ottersheim. It also appears that they had relocated to the Beresan, as the 1858 census for Karlsruhe shows that Maria Anna was living there at the time. Presumably, Peter had died before the census was taken.

Marianna and Johannes married sometime around 1840. Together they had ten children, five girls and five boys, all of whom were born in Karlsruhe. The first was born in 1842 and the youngest was born in 1861. I can’t imagine how hard that was on Marianna.

Sometime after all their children were born, Marianna and Johannes may have moved to the Christina colony, as Johannes died there in 1885. He is also buried there. I acknowledge the possibility that only Johannes moved there, perhaps to be with a family member who cared for him in his final days. However, the simplest answer is often the correct one, so it’s more likely the former rather than the latter.

Nevertheless, Marianna was later back in Karlsruhe, or had never left, because she died there on June 4, 1893. Marianna was survived by all her children, who at the time ranged in age from 32 to 51. The cause of death was registered as “old age”.

52W Mark IV – Week 50: Card L11 Katherina Loran

Katherina Loran (1846-1893)

While I might not have a lot about my Germans from Russia ancestry and I haven’t gotten as far back in those lines as the other branches of my family tree, Katherina Loran, is one of the few of my Great x3 Grandparents of this lineage for whom I have the names of all four of her grandparents. In fact, I know the names of three of her for Great Grandfathers, but it should come as no surprise to any genealogist that I don’t know any of her Great Grandmothers.

Katherina was born in the Karlsruhe colony in the Beresan in 1846, to Michael Loran and Klara Stumpf. Both of Katherina’s parents were born in the Beresan – Michael in Karlsruhe and Klara in Speier.

On her paternal line, Katherina’s ancestors came from Queichheim, Rhinepalatinate. Queichheim is now part of Landau, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, about 40 kilometers northwest of Karlsruhe, where many of my other German-Russian ancestors originated.

On her mother’s paternal side, Katherine’s maternal grandfather, Jakob Stumpf, was born in Riedseltz, Weissenburg, Elsaß (Alsace). Alsace spent much of its history moving between French and German control. At the time Jakob was born, it was primarily under French control, but small exclaves were under German control. Riedseltz is now within France, about five kilometers from the German border and just over 30 kilometers due west of Karlsruhe.

Katherina’s maternal grandmother, Elisabetha Berk (or Burck) was born in Pforzheim, Baden, on the other side of Karlsruhe and about 50 kilometers from Riedseltz. Just over 15 years ago, when one of my cousins married, they and their spouse created a new surname that was a mash-up of their surnames at birth. The result was “Burke”. I had to let my cousin know that she was reviving the surname of our Great x5 Grandmother!

Returning to Katherina, she married Jacob Anton in Karlsruhe on October 28, 1863. Over a 25 year period, Katherina had 11 children with Jacob. At least half her children emigrated to the United States and Canada, mostly to Montana and Saskatchewan. I think it’s amazing to think that my lifetime overlapped with two of her children. The youngest of Katherina’s children, Mathilda, lived until December 1971, passing away at age 83. If I had ever met Mathilda, I’d have been meeting with someone only one generation away from someone born more than 100 years before me.

In  1874, Katherina and her family moved from Karlsruhe to Christina, one of the German daughter colonies in the Beresan. It was very likely that Katherina was pregnant at the time of the move, because she gave birth to a daughter, Veronica, in June 1874. Katherina and Jakob may have been amongst the earliest settlers in Christina, as it may have been founded in 1874; however, there are birth records showing that German colonists were there as early as 1860. Today what remains of Christina

Katherina died young, at age 47, when her youngest child was only five years old.

Paul Antone, my maternal grandmother’s second cousin*, made a trip to Ukraine in 2010 to visit some of the places where the German colonists had lived. He shared many of his photos with me, including several from the Christina cemetery. Amongst those was a photo of Katherina’s headstone.

Translated to English, the inscription on Katherina’s headstone reads “Here rests in God Katherina, born in the year 1846, died 1893.”

*Yes, I know that makes him my second cousin twice removed. 😏