Tag: photograph

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 IV – Week 48: Card L9 Margaretha Bechler

Margaretha Bechler (1844-?)

Talk about “leveling up” one’s genealogy. My maternal grandmother’s ancestry has been so difficult to research over the decades. However, thanks to the spin I’ve taken on this year’s 52 Ancestors Challenge, I’ve managed to improve my work on this branch. I’ve spent a lot of time double-checking and updating my research. As a result, I’ve changed a lot of what I’ve recorded about my maternal grandmother’s line, some of which has been unchanged in 30 years.

Case in point is my Great x3 Grandmother, Margaretha Bechler, who until about a week ago I had as “Boechler” in every genealogy database I’ve used since the mid-90s. In fact, until three minutes ago, the draft I’ve had for this post for the last two weeks has had “Margaretha ‘Regina’ Boechler (1844-?)” as the caption under her image above. I removed the “Regina” because I cannot find where I got that from. So even if it was correct, I can’t back it up.

In the old country, the name was spelled “Bechler” and “Boechler” in the new world. This is reflected in the church register for Margaretha’s marriage to Valentine Schmidt. It is the spelling used in the 1858 Karlsruhe, Beresan census entry for her family. “Bechler” is also the spelling used in “The German Colonies in South Russia” by Konrad Keller, one of the leading sources for Germans from Russia.

For many of the descendants in North America of Margaretha’s father, Gregor, they use the spelling “Boechler”. This is demonstrated by one of the few resources I have had for many years, the Boechler Family History, by Tim Boechler and Annette Boechler, published in 1994 and revised in 1997.

For the longest time, these were two of my main sources for Boechler/Bechler. For the last few weeks I was wishing I had a copy of that census book, only to discover a week ago that I had bought a copy in 2001. It’s been sitting in a bankers box labelled “To Do”. I better get “To It”.

As a result of revisiting my research, I’ve also come to reject a photo I had accepted without question that is reproduced it the Boechler Family History. I have no idea about the provenance of the photo. It is said to be a photo of Gregor Boechler, his wife Katherine Geiger, and their seven children, including Margaretha. Some time in the last 30 years I came across another copy of the image that has a caption with the names of the people who are supposedly in the photo.

Unfortunately, much of the information in the caption does not pass scrutiny. First and most egregious, the 1858 Karlsruhe census states that Katherine died in 1853. It further indicates that Gregor married a woman named Marianna by 1854. The census includes five children said to be Gregor’s. Three were born before 1853 (Margaretha, Jakob, Andreas), two were born after 1853 (Katharina, Franz). Given that the photo has children born after 1853, that cannot be Katherine in the photo. It must be Marianna. The photo doesn’t include the younger Katherina, but it is possible she had died before it was taken.

For some of the children, the birthdates in the caption are wildly different from those in the 1853 census, primarily those who can be attributed to Katherine Geiger. The most glaring of these is Margaretha. The census indicates that she is Gregor’s eldest child, but the photo says that she is 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.

On that point, I have no sources for Phillip and John. FamilySearch has a Phillip and Johannes listed as Gregor’s sons; however, none of the sources attached to these individuals provides any evidence that they are Gregor’s sons.

After having revisited my research, what do I know about my Great x3 Grandmother?

Margaretha was born in 1839 in the Beresan district, most likely in the Karlsruhe colony, to Gregor Bechler and Katherine Geiger. Gregor was originally from Karlsruhe in the Grand Duchy of Baden, who moved to the Beresan with his family shortly after he was born. I know nothing about Katherine other than the fact she married Gregor and had three children with him.

Margaretha married Valentine Schmidt on October 21, 1863. Together they had two daughters, my Great x 2 Grandmother Barbara and a younger sister, Elisabeth. There may be four other subsequent children, but beyond a list of names I have not seen proper sources for them. While that is not the end of Margaretha’s story, that is the end of what I know about her.

52W Mark IV – Week 42: Card L3 Barbara Schmidt

Barbara Schmidt (1865-1936)

My Great Great Grandmother, Barbara Schmidt, was born to Valentine Schmidt and Margaretha Boechler on October 25, 1865 in Karlsruhe, Beresan, Ukraine, Russian Empire. Karlsruhe was one of the colonies established by German settlers who responded to the manifestos issued by Catherine the Great and, later, her grandson Czar Alexander I. Since Karlsruhe was founded in 1809, it is most likely that its founders were responding to a manifesto issued by Alexander I in 1804.

I know almost nothing about Barbara before she married Michael Lerner, said to have been in February 1883. There’s only one clue about her childhood, which is from a photo I first saw in a book in 1997. I’ve since seen it other places. I can’t even recall when or how I came across it. I think I was probably still using Windows 95 and Netscape. One of the later iterations I have of it came with additional information, which is in the bottom left of this graphic:

The one alteration I made to each image was to add “ФОТОГРАФЪ ХАДАКЪ Photographer Khadak” (or “Hadak”). It is what you can see in the bottom of the photo. I googled the phrase using the Cyrillic, without the translation/transliteration. The results included a photograph that was listed for sale on a Russian website that sells collectibles, which had the same caption at the bottom.

The photos of the item included this:

My Google results also included a Russian-language Wikipedia article, Хадак, Павел Иосифович (Khadak, Pavel Iosifovich). If the person in the article is the person who took the photograph, I have a real timeline problem.

The article says that Pavel Khadak was born in 1863 – two years before Barbara. So if the photo was taken when Barbara was 10, in 1875, Pavel would have been 12 years old. The Wiki article also says that Pavel took up photography sometime after 1881, and only later attended photography school. This means that Pavel likely couldn’t have taken the photo until the early to mid-1880s.

I also considered whether Barbara could have been born much later than 1865. If so, if she was 10 in a photo taken around 1885, she’d have been born in 1875. The problem is she’d have been eight years old when she married and had her first child.

Update: So often I find what I’m looking for after I click “publish”. Sigh. Better late than never! I’ve since come across transcriptions/translations of church records, which include baptismal registrations for Karlsruhe. Amongst these is an entry showing that Barbara was born on October 17, 1864, not October 25 as I found in many other secondary sources. Barbara was baptized on October 18, 1864. Interestingly, her godparents were Franz Böhm and…Barbara Schmidt! My guess is that Godmother Barbara might be an aunt. Of course, this supports the original estimate that the family photo was taken in 1875 – which weighs against it having been taken by Pavel Khadak of the Wikipedia article.

I have no idea how Barbara and Michael came to be together, as Michael was from Rastadt, Beresan, which was about 50 kilometers from Karlsruhe. After the marriage, the couple lived in Rastadt, where Michael was a farmer. The couple had six children in Rastadt.

In 1893, Michael and Barbara moved the family family from the Beresan and relocated to the United States. Their youngest child was only five months old at the time, with three three others being aged 5 and under. Poor Barbara – I’m pretty sure the childcare would have all fallen upon her.

The Lerners landed at Ellis Island on May 12, 1893 and quickly settled in Clay County, Texas, where Michael started a farm outside of Henrietta, the county seat. Meanwhile, Barbara gave birth to eight more children. The first of their child born in the United States was my Great Grandfather, Heronimus (“Jerome” or “Jerry”) Lerner. According to the 1910 US Census, Barbara only spoke German. However, according to Canadian census records, Barbara was able to speak English by 1921.

The family remained in Texas for 25 years, until 1918. By that time, several of Barbara’s older children, including Jerry, had relocated to Saskatchewan, near Fox Valley. Michael moved Barbara and most of their other children to Rastadt, Saskatchewan, not far from Fox Valley. Only one of their daughters remained in Texas. Once in Rastadt, Michael again took up farming. Barbara became a nationalized Canadian (although technically a British subject – Canadian citizenship separate from British nationality did not occur until 1947).

In 2000 or 2001, I was doing a series of job interviews. I included genealogy as one of my interests in my resume. One of my interviews was at a firm where I didn’t have much of an expectation of succeeding (there were good reasons), but I went to it anyway. Can’t score if you don’t take the shot!

One of the interviewers took great interest in my hobby, and I ended up talking about a trip to a small town in Saskatchewan that I had done a few years ago, meaning my trip to Fox Valley and Rastadt in 1997. The panelist asked me to name the towns anyway, and he said that he had heard of them. It instantly clicked as to why – his last name was Schmidt! After comparing notes, we figured out that we were third or fourth cousins of some degree.

As expected, I didn’t get the job – although I was successful elsewhere. But I found a cousin!

Barbara died on October 21, 1936, four days shy of her 71st birthday. Her death occurred in Liebenthal, Saskatchewan, a village about 25 kilometers north of Fox Valley and Rastadt. Other than the proximity, I haven’t found Barbara’s connection to Liebenthal. Her husband, who survived her, was still farming in Rastadt. Barbara might have had family in Liebenthal, but her children had largely moved to larger places like Regina, Saskatchewan and Medicine Hat, Alberta.

The larger mystery for some time was where Barbara was buried. When I first started investigating this in the late 1990s, the sources available to me had her interred at either the Fox Valley Cemetery or the Rastadt Cemetery. After further investigation, and a trip to Fox Valley and Rastadt in 1997, I determined that she must be buried at the Fox Valley Cemetery.

While there is no marker for her at Fox Valley, the cemetery records show that she is buried in plot as W23-2, which is right beside where her husband, Michael, is buried (plot W23-3). As well, other close Lerner family members are buried in Fox Valley Cemetery, including their son Jerome Lerner (plot W13-1).

On the contrary, there are no other Lerners buried in the Rastadt cemetery. As well, there appears to be inconsistency in the plot in which she is supposedly interred in Rastadt. An older listing from 1997 indicated plot 61; in 2004, it was said to be plot 70. This inconsistency casts doubt on the possibility Barbara is interred at Rastadt. In any event, the Fox Valley Cemetery records far outweigh the secondary sources for Rastadt Cemetery.

Fixed it!

52W Mark II – Week 2: Favourite Photo

Happy New Year!!

Hold on, that was already two weeks ago – or was it? It was under the Gregorian calendar, but under the Julian calendar, it’s…five minutes from now as of the time I write this. Break out the bubbly!

So if this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge is “Favourite Photo”, why all this talk of the new year?

I’ve written about my great grandmother, Emelia Anton, many times. She was born on January 1, 1903; however, to this day I am uncertain as to whether it was under the Gregorian or Julian calendar.

Emelia Anton (1903 – 1997), most likely around 1920.

The maternal side of my mother’s family were Germans from Russia, German colonists who settled in the Russian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. For the most part, my ancestors all settled in the Beresan district of Kherson province in what is now Ukraine. By the 18th century, all parts of what is now Germany had adopted the Gregorian calendar. However, the Julian calendar was in use in Imperial Russia until the early 20th century.

From time to time over the years, I have tried to determine whether the German colonies used the calendar of their homeland or had adopted the calendar of the Russians, particularly given that the German colonies were of many decades’ duration. However, most of my inquiries have been inconclusive.

While I have recorded Emelia’s birth in my database as January 1, 1903 under the Gregorian calendar, it might be more likely than not that her birth was recorded under the Julian calendar. While Emelia’s parents were born in the Beresan colonies and five of her older siblings were born in the Beresan as well, by the time Emelia was born the family had migrated to Russia, albeit with other Germans. The family spent about twelve years in Selo Suchoi, Veronesch, Russia, where Emelia was born.

I only discovered this photo of my great grandmother a few weeks ago, when I was visiting my parents over Christmas. While I was there, she pulled out a box of some of her parents’ possessions, looking for some photos of her mother. While many of the photos my mother pulled out I had seen before, I had never seen this one before. Given the composition of two photos side-by-side, it appears that it is a stereogram. If you’re good at those Magic Eye pictures that were the craze in the 90s, you might be able to see the stereo image without using a stereoscope.

Whichever calendar Emelia was born under, this month would have been Emelia’s 100th birthday. Happy 100th!