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Week 2 Prompt: Challenge

This week’s 52 Ancestors theme is about challenges. Simple enough, I guess. But my challenge was figuring out which challenging ancestor to write about. I’ve decided to write about one ancestral couple, who I assumed would remain brick walls forever. Fortunately, with the few clues that I had and new databases on Ancestry, I was able to find this German couple’s origins and parents.

Heinrich Karl “Charles” Stoffel and Anne Marie “Mary” Braun are second great-grandparents on my maternal side. They immigrated from Germany and settled in Chicago, where all seven of their children were born. Since their first child was born in 1885 in Chicago, I assumed the couple met and married in Chicago. The 1900 census wasn’t all that helpful, stating that they had been both married and in the US for 16 years, having both arrived in 1884.1 Having no luck locating a Cook County marriage license for the couple (and I tried everything!!) I began to wonder if they had actually married in Germany.

I found a possible passenger list for a Carl and Marie Stoffel, age 30 and 29 respectively, who were from Germany and headed to Chicago. The were aboard the Noordland that arrived in New York on 24 September 1884.2 Right ages, right place, right time. Could this be them? It would be eight years before I would learn the answer.

Here’s what I knew about Charles and Mary (as they were known in the US):

  • Charles and Mary married about 1884, possibly in Germany.
  • Both Charles and Mary immigrated in 1884.
  • According to his death certificate, Charles was born about 1854 in Germany.3 The 1900 census provides September 1855 for birth.4
  • According to her death certificate, Mary was born 19 November 1855 in “Frankford,” Germany.5
  • According to their two oldest children’s birth certificates, Charles and Mary were born in Hessen.6 This helps pinpoint “Frankford” as likely Frankfurt in Hessen.
  • Charles and Mary were most likely Lutheran Germans, as opposed to Catholic Germans, as they were both buried in a non-Catholic cemetery and Mary’s funeral did not include mass. None of their children married in a Catholic church.

Frankfurt is a big city, and it was quite possible that they didn’t come from the city, but rather a smaller town nearby. I didn’t have much of a “fan club” for them, and I hadn’t located any church records (which are usually helpful for the German Lutherans). And if the passenger list I had found was for them, it did not include any specific place of birth to go off of. The search for their origins would have to be put on hold until I had more information.

Fast forward eight years. In early 2018, three new databases (with indexed images) were added to Ancestry for Hessen birth, marriage, and death registrations. So of course I stopped what I was doing and headed on over to look for the marriage of Karl and Marie—what did I have to lose?

I conducted a search for a Stoffel/Braun marriage about 1884, which turned up a record for Heinrich Karl Stoffel and Anna Maria Braun in 1884. The marriage records states that:

  • They married on 24 August 1884 at Stammheim, Hessen.
  • Karl was born the 16th of September 1853 in Ortenberg, living in Stammheim; he is the son of Heinrich Stoffel and Magdalena Knoll.
  • Anne Marie was born the 19th of November 1854 in Ober Florstadt, living in Ober Florstadt; she is the daughter of Kaspar Braun and Margaretha Kempf.
  • The witnesses were Heinrich Schenk living at Stammheim and Wilhelm Braun living at Nieder Florstadt.7

The birth month for Charles matches the one found on the 1900 census, with the year being off by two. The birth month and day for Mary matches those found on her death certificate, with the year being off by one. Stammheim, Florstadt, and Ortenberg are within miles of one another, and about 20 or so miles outside of Frankfurt.

While this was great evidence, it wasn’t enough, so I focused on Mary’s family because I had a possible sister based on prior research. So I turned to the birth registrations for Hessen and came up empty. I then turned to the church records for Hessen that were added to Ancestry in late 2017, and found Mary’s baptism with the same birthdate and parents that were stated in the marriage record.8

Although a baptism for the suspected sister wasn’t uncovered (I’m beginning to think she’s a niece, or maybe no relation at all), I was able to build a family group for her parents. Among the siblings was Elisabetha, who married Heinrich Schenk.9 They are also found in Chicago, and in fact, they came over with the Carl and Marie mentioned earlier in this post in 1884—they and their children are listed right before Carl and Marie.10 That can’t be a coincidence. Also note that Elisabetha and Heinrich had a daughter Anna who married Max Haase and they had a son named William (b. December 1892) who is probably the “Wm. Haase” listed in the wedding guest register for Anna Stoffel (daughter of Charles and Mary) and George Rottman.11

There’s not much doubt that I have discovered the origin and parents of both Charles and Mary (although there is a conflict in the name of Charles’s mother in the marriage record and his baptism record, but that’s a story for another day). I still have a some work to do to put the family together, but I’m confident I have the right people. Challenge averted!

Sources

  1. 1900 U.S. census, Cook County, Illinois, population schedule, Chicago Ward 8, enumeration district (ED) 200, sheet 10A, p. 307 (stamped), dwelling 64, family 180, Charles Stoffel.
  2. Manifest, S. S. Noordland, 24 September 1884, unpaginated, entries 370 and 371, Carl Stoffel, age 30, and Marie Stoffel, age 29; images, “New York, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820-1957,” Ancestry (http://ancestry.com : accessed 29 November 2009).
  3. Cook County, Illinois, death certificate no. 14999 (1902), Charles Stoffel; Cook County Clerk’s Office, Chicago.
  4. 1900 U.S. census, pop. sch., Chicago Ward 8, Cook County, Illinois, ED 200, sheet 10A, dwell. 64, fam. 180, Charles Stoffel.
  5. Cook County, Illinois,  (Cook County Clerk’s Office, Chicago),  death certificate no. 23796 (1936), Mary Stoffel; Illinois Death Certificates 917.
  6. Cook County, Illinois, (Cook County Clerk’s Office, Chicago), birth certificate no. 92286 (1885), Heinrich Stoffel; FHL microfilm 1,287,850. Also, Cook County, Illinois, (Cook County Clerk’s Office, Chicago), birth certificate no. 4353 (1887), Anna Stoffel; FHL microfilm 1,287,863.
  7. ”Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930,” database and images, Ancestry, Stoffel-Braun marriage, 24 August 1884, Stammheim.
  8. Evangelische Kirche Nieder Florstadt (Nieder Florstadt, Hessen, Germany), Taufen [Baptisms] 1831-1863, 7:484, Anne Marie Braun (1854); FHL microfilm 1,200,654, item 2.
  9. Evangelische Kirche Staden (Staden, Hessen, Germany), Heiraten [Marriages] 1808-1875, 14:404, Schenk-Braun (1871); FHL microfilm 1,608,915, item 2.
  10. 1900 US census, Cook County, Illinois, pop. sch., Chicago Ward 12, ED 376, sheet 11B, dwell. 155, fam. 220, Henry Schenk. Also, Manifest, S. S. Noordland, 24 September 1884, unpaginated, entries 366-367, Hech. Schenk, age 36, and El. Schenk, age 39; images, “New York, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820-1957,” Ancestry.
  11. 1900 US census, Cook County, Illinois, pop. sch., Chicago Ward 12, ED 376, sheet 11B, dwell. 155, fam. 220, Henry Schenk. Also, George Rottman & Anna Stoffel Wedding Register, 1914, Rottman Family Artifacts; privately held by Julie (Cahill) Tarr; George & Anna (Stoffel) Rottman are the owner’s great-grandparents. The register has been in the family since their marriage in 1914.