New Family Tree

Dear Reader,

It's not a perfect science, so we'll call it art. I have been using an Excell spreadsheet for the past few years to be able to quickly view all my ancestors at once. This only helps me to be able to see how people are related to each other. I haven't included any dates or places, but it has helped me a lot as I add new people to my tree. The other day I thought I should share this with everyone else as it may be helpful to others and others may be able to fill in some gaps that I don't have. Like I said, it's not a perfect science, but it's the best I can do right now. Click on the "Family Tree" tab at the top of the page and follow the instructions. Please e-mail me if there are any errors or if my instructions are just too confusing. 

Thank you and Enjoy!

McKay Coffey

Kahle

FINALLY!!!!

I have finally found the connection between Caroline, Fredrich Holzgrafe's wife, and her German/American family. When I first picked up the Holzgrafe line back in 2011 my family tree looked a lot different than it does now. Smaller mostly, but there were a few mysteries which I was able to set straight as well. Today, I have finally tackled one of the greatest mysteries in my American genealogy. In 2011 my family tree indicated that Henry August Holzgrafe and Fredrich Holzgrafe (who may or may not be brothers) had the same wife: Caroline Baker. It turns out that they are brothers who each married a Caroline, neither of whom had a maiden name of Baker. No, Henry August's wife was Caroline Schnake (the 'Baker' may have been a mistake or a previous marriage) and Fredrich's wife was Caroline Kahle. Today, I have finally connected Caroline Kahle to her family. It wasn't easy, and there isn't 100% positive proof, but I believe that I've done it.

THE FIRST AND THE LAST

The first piece of the puzzle (which turned out to be the last as well), was Caroline's headstone. After Fredrich died in 1867, Caroline married Henry Schurmeier (oo1868 the marriage record has her last name as Halzgrove). Together, they added two more children to the combined families. Caroline Schurmeier died 20 June 1899 and was buried in the Tabor Cemetery in Haubstadt, Gibson, Indiana. The inscription reads:

"MOTHER" CAROLINE SCHURMEIER Jun. 2, 1834 - Jun. 20, 1899

Then I looked at all the census records for which I could find Caroline. The hardest of these was 1860 (See Neighbor Back Search). None of the census records were particularly helpful. It only told me that she was born in Germany around 1836. Somehow, I lost track of the date on the head stone and assumed that her birth date was in 1836.

MAIDEN NAME

Figuring out her maiden name was pretty difficult as well. I got a hold of the Willard Library in Evansville, Indiana and asked if they could help. They ran a few searches and over time came up with a marriage date for a Karoline Ghale or Chale to Fredrich Halzgrafe of 9 November 1850 which I found on Ancestry.com as well. So, I requested the marriage record to check the spelling of Caroline's last name myself...sure enough it looked like Ghale, but there is no known surname which starts with "Gh".

Looking at property purchases made by the Holzgrafes, I began to paint a picture of where they lived and where they moved. Fredrich must have lived with his brother for some time and then purchased a portion of Henry August's property. There he lived with his family for a few years until, for some reason, Fredrich sold the property back to his brother and purchased some property up north near Darmstadt, IN. This move took them to a different church. This church had records on microfilm which I could check out for myself at the library. I was excited to find the death information for Fredrich in 1867, but when I instead found the death of two of his children which I didn't know even existed! This turned out to be what I've called The Worst Year of a Mother's Life. Caroline lost her husband and two children in the same year. While this was very sad new to me, it gave me a big clue as to Caroline's last name. I still couldn't read it, but said it looked like Kuchla or Kahle or Kahre. (the "g" between her names stands for geboren which is German for born meaning her maiden name)

Recently, I pulled this record up again and looked at other families in the same church, turns out Kahle was a family name in the town. This may have been why the family moved up to Darmstadt in the first place, to be near Caroline Kahle's family. I tried searching for the church records in Evansville, but that church didn't have records that far back...except for baptisms. The Willard Library sent me a scanned image of the baptism of Caroline's daughter who died in 1867. The parents were listed as Friedrich Holzgrafe and Karoline g. Kahle. It was official. Kahle it was!

KAHLE FAMILY

So, I quickly pulled together all information I could find on any Kahles in the area for that time period and search FamilySearch for any Caroline Kahle born in 1836. Slowly, I developed a family tree for these Kahles which most likely were her family and ran a search on Ancestry.com. I found a Kahle family in an immigration record which match the Kahles in Evansville and had a Caroline too only her birth was 1834 (I was looking for 1836). The family arrived in the port of New Orleans from Bremen on 31 December 1847 aboard a ship called the Richard Cobden.

 

I found this same family in German baptism records on FamilySearch and found a Caroline Dorothee Auguste Henriette Holzgrafe who was christened on 8 June 1834. I was bummed thinking I was so close, but then I thought I'd check for her birth date again and looked back at the head stone on Findagrave.com. Sure enough, Caroline was born 2 June 1834 which fits perfectly. No, it's not 100% proof, but I'm going with it.

HOMETOWN

You want more proof? Ok. on the immigration record, the family indicated that they were from a town called Behen. This town doesn't exist...anymore. I went on Ancestry.com to the old German maps and found a tiny region called Ober Behen right next to Schwicheln and Hiddenhausen and all those Holzgraefes. I even found a hill with "Kahle B." written on it (B meaning Berg or hill) right next to the town!
 

Want more proof? The baptism records from FamilySearch were from a town called "Rehem", Westfalen, which was obviously an indexing error since there is no Rehem, Westfalen. Also, a ton of records indicating that the person was born in "Rehem" also had them marrying or dying in Hiddenhausen and Lohne and places in that very region. This Rehem should have been transcribed as Behem which is where my 3rd great-grandmother is from.

FAMILY TREE

And so, I have come up with the following family tree for Caroline:

Father: Carl Ludwig Ferdinand Kahle 
Mother: Johanne Friederike Louise Charlotte Schwerdtfeger
Children: Caroline Dorothee Auguste Henriette Kahle *1834
                 Hanne Wilhelmine Kahle *1836
                 Friederike Charlotte Kahle *1838
                 Henriette Justine Charlotte Kahle *1840
                 Heinrich August Kahle *1842 (marries Elisabeth Waitzel in IN)
                 Christine Friederike Henriette Kahle *1845
 
 Next mystery to solve: Louis Holzgrafe *1853, son of Friedrich Holzgrafe and Caroline Kahle. What happened to him after 1870?

Sister-Sister

I've been making some great discoveries revolving around the family of Albert Heinrich Holzgraefe and Anne Marie Sophie Kassebaum. The previous post describes the discovery of the maiden name of one of Albert's daughter-in-laws. I've also been looking into the maiden name of his other daughter-in-law, Karoline Kahle. While this research has been going on, I've been puzzled by the lack of information on Albert's oldest daughter, Justine Caroline Wilhelmine. I had a birthdate and that's all. 

More research on the Germany side of things has revealed many helpful insights. For instance, most of the Holzgraefes in my line have lived around Herford since the 1600s at least. Eventually expansion was necessary and the younger sons were more prone to be forced to find employment elsewhere. After getting married and starting a family, Albert and his wife moved a few miles north to a town called Bergkirchen. This is where Henry August and Fredrich were born as well as Caroline Schnake (It seems that Karoline Kahle was from Hannover). In Bergkirchen, Albert was able to save up enough money to help fund the emmigration of his sons. But what happened to Justine Caroline Wilhelmine?

Knowing that the family name was unique in Bergkirchen, I did a search in FamilySearch for any Holzgraefes. I found 2 marriages which seemed promising. One was for a Anna Catharina Holzgraefe to Christian Friedrich Fegel (oo 10 January 1847) and the other was for a Justine Wilhelmine Holzgraefe to Christian Friedrich Fegel (oo 9 January 1848). I also found a birth record for a Emilie Ottilie Fegel (*1 August 1847) with parents Anna Catharina Holzgraefe and Christian Friedrich Fegel. This was all very facinating, but I needed more proof to connect these individuals to my tree. 

The digital records didn't have enough information so I went to the films. Lucky for me, the Family History Library at my University hapens to have the very film I needed. So, I looked up the marriage records for '47 and '48 and sure enough found the two Holzgraefes marrying the same man one year apart from another. The church record also noted that both Holzgraefe brides were daughters of Albert and Anne Marie Sophie Kassebaum. They were sisters. The record also mentioned that Anna Catharina H. was born 29 April 1819 in Hiddenhausen and died in September 1867 (probably in Bergkirchen). When I scrolled over to the other marriage record I found that her sister, Justine Caroline Wilhelmine H. was born 19 September 1821 in Hiddenhausen, Westfalen. 

It appears that Anna Catharina H. died shortly after giving birth and that her husband, Christian Fegel, married her sister after her death. Little Emilie was raised by her Aunt/step-mother. Nothing has been found regarding Emilie yet. 

The moral of the story is: Secondary sources may not have all the information you need, but they can lead you to the primary sources that do. 

Baker-Schnake Mystery Solved!

For years now, the spouse of Henry August Holzgraefe (born in Bergkirchen, Germany in 1824) has been known as Caroline Baker due to the undeniable Indiana marriage record which marriage took place in the Evansville, Trinity Lutheran Church in 1850. Since I first started my Holzgrafe research I have been puzzled by Caroline. I couldn't find any Bakers in Evansville who might be related to the German immigrant. Over the years I slowly built up clues. Her birth and death dates were known due to her death records in 1899. She was born on 5 December 1825 in Germany. Baker was not a very common German surname. I thought I'd try looking at the marriage records of the children of Henry and Caroline as they often will have the mother's maiden name on them. Sure enough two of their children gave us clues as to the true maiden name of Caroline. One record indicated that the child's mother's name was Caroline S. and the other record showed a Caroline Schnake. Schnake? Not even close to Baker. As I looked closer, I could see that the Holzgrafes tended to live near a group of Schnakes. These must be her relatives, I thought! I began to research the Schnake family tree using Family Search and other sources. I put together a neat little family tree and was able to help the Schnake family tree grow a bit in the Evansville, Indiana area.

Then it began. The father of the neighbor Schnakes was Johann Daniel Ludewig Schnake who was born in Bergkirchen, Germany as were his children. I thought, hey, why don't I just search for a Caroline Schnake *1825? The first hit was Marie Caroline Louise Schnake *5 December 1825 in Bergkirchen, Germany daughter of Johann Daniel Ludewig Schnake and his first wife.

I have absolutely no doubt that Marie Caroline Louise Schnake is the wife of Henry August Holzgrafe. As to how her name became Baker for the marriage record, I am not sure. Perhaps she married a Baker shortly before and he passed away. Or perhaps they just wrote her name down wrong. Schnaker sounds a little like Baker...maybe? Either way, I am satisfied. One more mystery solved.