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?
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