Just added a new page to my Blog

I think I am getting adventurous with my Blog. I have added a page called Video Links which will give you links to my YouTube Channel uploads. And in case you never actually visit my Blog but just rely on emails, you won't know they are there--so I am letting you know. Visit my Blog. It is at:
Rödiger-Eichenauer Trace (https://skeeterbyte-roediger.blogspot.com). There is a menu in the upper left corner of the blog page which gives you access to "Video Links".

Click on that to see the list of Videos that I have posted. I just posted one today--Hint, hint. To get back to the Home page, just click on "Home" in the same menu.

And, while I am on the subject, do you see that little blue box:

Click on that to become a "Follower". There are no initiation rites or fees. It is just a way for you to be kept in the loop and for me to see who is interested.

All the best to the Rödiger-Eichenauer Clan--Stephen

This will be short and sweet--I am trying to provide a link to a Slideshow which I just uploaded to YouTube. So, this may work and it may not. It consists of some photos I took of the village of Tann in 2014. This is the village from which both Eichenauer and Rödiger ancestors came. Here is the Link. Let me know if it works. If it does, I will probably create a page in the blog just for such videos in the future: Tann-Ludwigsau 2014

What goes on behind the scenes

I am so random about blogging. It isn’t because there is nothing to share. It is because huge amount of time is spent researching and indexing records which are the basis for the blogs.

For the last year I have subscribed to Archion.de. This is an attempt by the Lutheran Church of Germany to make as many of Lutheran Church Books available via the Internet. Because the Roedigers were from the village of Tann in Hesse, I was hoping to start there. But the records from Tann have not been digitized yet. So I have had to be content with the approximately 200 records that I found on microfiche while visiting the District Church Archive in Kassel in 2017. 

While I wait impatiently for that to happen I have turned my attention to the Eichenauer family.

The Eichenauers moved to Hof Trunsbach near the end of the 18th century. They worshiped at the Lutheran Church in the nearby village of Niederthalhausen. And so many of the records pertaining to the ancestors of the Eichenauers who moved from Hof Trunsbach to Tann in about 1835 come from the church in Niederthalhausen.

This is one of about 20 watercolors of Niederthalhausen by an unknown artist. I discovered them and a third cousin once removed when I searched for a Facebook group having an interest in Niederthalhausen. There was no group, but my cousin, Monika, had provided a link from her Facebook page to her slideshow of the watercolors on YouTube. When I contacted her to see if she would share the digital files (which she did) we discovered our relationship. Her great-grandmother was a half-sister of John Henry Roediger who immigrated to Ohio in 1893. To see the video, go to YouTube.com and type "Das Dorf Niederthalhausen" into the search box. There are two results. One is the watercolors and one is almost six minutes of the ringing of the church bells with several different views of the church done with photographs. The first is from Monika. The second appears to be someone who has recorded church bells from numerous churches. It is quite long but you might find it interesting as well.

It turns out that her mother had done quite a bit of genealogical research and Monika has taken an interest as well. So, we have done quite a lot of Messengering back and forth, sharing information, albeit ALL in German.

In future posts, I’m sure I will be sharing some of what I’ve learned from her.

Actually, I wanted to tell you of my progress on the Niederthalhausen Church Records. So far I have indexed all of the baptismal records from 1764-1900 (1360 baptisms); all marriage records from 1732-1900 (383 marriages) and am currently working on the death records. I have indexed all of the death records from 1795 until 1855 so far.

This has allowed me to add so much to my family tree. I have been amazed at the percentage of the population which has some connection to the Eichenauer family. I think it would be safe to say that 90% of the records I have indexed have found there way into my Stammbaum (Family Tree).

So, although the Blog has been very quiet recently, the work has continued without a pause. And much has been learned about the Eichenauers and their descendants who remained in Germany.

Until the next Blog—Steve

Quick Update

Sadly, I have been unable to do any meaningful research for about two weeks now. I just wanted to let you know why. First, I was having second thoughts about retirement and I had a deadline to turn in papers by 5/1. So I was debating with myself about that. Then, the hard drive on my laptop died and I had to replace it. Then the Lacie external hard drive, which had all my genealogical documents, all of my photos since the beginning of photography in our family and all of my music, also failed before I could copy them onto my new, improved, spacious laptop hard drive. I thought that I had been backing it up on Time Machine as well. But I was wrong. So now I have the added expense of seeing if the files can be recovered. If not, then I have lost an undetermined amount of research. On the bright side, I found a copy of my photo library and music library that I had backed up at the end of February on another computer. So only about two months of photos and music are actually missing. The music was not a big deal. Most of that was on CDs and just needed to be put back on the computer. And I don’t think I took any really important photos during that time period. But the bad thing was that I had research that had not been indexed nor added to my genealogy software and have no way to reconstruct that without having the files on the external drive recovered. Please keep your fingers crossed for me.

Anyway, I have been pretty busy trying to straighten all this out as best as can be. I have determined that the laptop hard drive failure was simply due to aging and the failure of the  Lacie external drive (which is considered a very dependable drive) was due to a loose connection at the USB hub that was interrupted one too many times before I realized it, not the drive’s fault.

As to my retirement decision, I have determined that I should wait about three more years before attempting to jump ship again.

So, I think I can start thinking about researching and indexing the German records again and hopefully I will soon have something worth posting to the blog.

In closing, let me just share some advice: BACK IT UP OFTEN. :)

Heinrich Nicolaus Roediger, Reprise

In the Blog Post "George Roediger, pt 2--In America" I introduced the information that I knew about George's oldest son, Heinrich Nicolaus, who went by "Henry" here in America. At that time I had not been able to access specific information about his death other than the date and place. Since then I have been to the Auglaize County Library and Probate Office in Wapakoneta and want to present what I found.
First, in the Probate Office, the County Record of Deaths revealed the following:
Roettinger, Henry N., Male, died 23 Dec 1905. He was single, age 32Y 8M 6D. He was born in Tamgreis, and died in St. Marys. He was a laborer, white and died of a contusion. His residence at the time of death was in Washington Twp, Auglaize Co, OH. Vital Statistics: Class 5, Sub-Class 1, No. 5.

As you can see, his last name was mangled, as was the place of his birth. I believe that what the recorder meant to write for his place of birth was Tann Kreis. Kreis being the German word for circle or in geographical terms, "district" and is often used in describing an area surrounding a particular location. According to his baptismal record, found in the church records of the Lutheran Church in Tann, He was born in House #52 in Tann on 17 April 1873 at 2 in the afternoon. He was baptized in the home on 4 May 1873. He is described as a child born out of wedlock, and named in the baptismal document as Nikolaus Scheuch. His parents are described as Anna Martha Scheuch, daughter of the Bürgermeister, Nikolaus Scheuch; and George Rödiger, son of the farmer, Tobias Rödiger. A month and a half after his birth, his parents were married in the Lutheran Church in Rohrbach on 1 June 1873. (Rohrbach is just .7 miles SE of Tann, both being situated on Rohrbacher Straße, which runs along the Rohrbach Brook).

After locating the newspaper accounts of Henry Roediger's death, I found the cause of death listed in the county records rather strange, if not totally inaccurate. I found three newspaper articles describing his death. The first two are from the Auglaize County Republican and the third from the Auglaize County Democrat. All were issued on December 28, 1905.

First, the clippings from the Republican:

As you can see, these newspaper reports chronicle the accident, and attribute Henry's death to a broken neck which was the result of his horse and buggy being struck by a passenger train engine. He was a hired hand on John Arnett's farm, and as is known from the 1900 census which was cited in the Blog Post "George Roediger, pt 2--In America", he had also been living with the Arnett family.The article from the Auglaize County Democrat provides mostly the same story but is more gruesome in detailing the accident. Just warning you! The Democrat also misspells Henry's surname and provides information about his family which seems suspect to me:

There are Roettgers in the area, but it is unfortunate that the reporter was unable to distinguish between the two families. And so the line about his parents living in southern Indiana is also suspicious. Maybe I am wrong, but as far as I know, George and Augusta never lived in Indiana, even for a short while. I do know that in 1900 (Census) George was renting land in Washington Twp, Auglaize County; at the time of his marriage to Augusta (1902) he was living in St. Marys, his son George Harry was born in 1903 in Washington Twp (county birth records), Auglaize Co; his daughter, Hulda Alice was born in June, 1905 in Hopewell Twp, Mercer Co (county birth records); and in 1910 (census) he owned land in Section 30 of Hopewell Twp, Mercer Co. adjacent to William Weir. It is possible that George went to southern Indiana and was there at the time of his son, Henry's death in 1905, but if so, he had been there less than 6 months before Henry was killed and stayed no longer than 5 years afterwards according to the records I have. Some of you who have researched this more thoroughly may have deed records or other documents which would narrow this down even further. If there is any info that substantiates or refutes the Democrat's claim I am all ears.

Thus it was, by the close of 1905, George Roediger was bereft of all of his first family, save one (Anna Margaretha Agnesa), and had begun a new family with Anna Augusta Grosse-Schmidt. Together they had two children, George Harry born 24 Aug 1903, and Hulda Alice born 5 June 1905.

George Roediger, pt 3a--The Elusive Albert Schmidt

This is an addendum to my previous post "George Roediger, pt. 3"

Albert Schmidt was the first husband of Anna Augusta Grosse, who later married George Roediger in Columbus on 30 October 1902. Their marriage record states that Anna (Grosse) Schmidt was a widow.
I have been trying to find a death record for Albert. I have been able to narrow down the time of his death to the period between 2 June 1900 and 30 October 1902. The first date is from the 1900 census which was enumerated on that date in Montgomery Twp, Franklin Co, OH, and the second date is from Anna Augusta Grosse's second marriage.
It seems that this should be a simple search now that the images of Franklin Co, Ohio's Death Records are now available on FamilySearch.org. But I have not only done an automated search, but when that failed to produce results, I looked at every line of every page of death records between these two dates and came up empty.

In the last Post, I highlighted newspaper articles about an Albert Schmidt who died by his own hand in 1903. But this death took place outside of the known time frame, and took place after Anna Augusta remarried. And even though there are a number of similarities between the Albert Schmidt who Anna Augusta married and the Albert Schmidt found in the haystack in 1903, there are also several dissimilarities which I believe would rule him out. And I believe that the facts presented below positively rule out "Haystack Albert Schmidt."

The portion in purple is an addition I made after the initial post:
But for those of you who are interested, I found the death record for "Haystack Albert" on line 26 of page 350 of the Franklin Co, Ohio Record of Deaths (1890-1899, vol. 3):
Albert Schmidt, white male, age 56 years, born in Germany, married, death was sudden on 6 July 1903. Ruled a suicide by morphine poisoning. His occupation was carpenter. He lived at the corner of 9th and Sycamore. He had lived in Columbus for 14 years. The names of his parents were unknown. 

To just point out the dissimilarities from this record to what was known about our Albert Schmidt:
1) Obviously, and most compelling is that he died over 9 months after the widow and Anna Augusta and George Roediger were married, and, as you will see below, at least 2 years after her husband Albert stopped showing up as the head of household in the City Directory and Anna began showing up as the head of the household.
2) This Albert was living at a different address than what is found in any of the records pertaining to Albert and Anna.
3) This Albert was 56 years of age, which makes him 3 years older than our Albert as portrayed by the 1900 census and 14 years older than portrayed by his marriage record. (See further down for details)
4) Finally, this Albert is listed as "married" at the time of his death. But, if he was, then it wasn't to Anna Augusta Grosse, who had by that time remarried and moved to Mercer Co.

The odd part of all this is that although this Albert Schmidt had lived in Columbus for the previous 14 years, he is not to be found in the City Directory, nor the 1900 Census. Stranger and Stranger.
For added mystery, I noticed that the person listed directly above this Albert Schmidt also died from suicide by morphine poisoning on the very same day. Katie Myers was 26 (30 years younger than Albert), had only lived in Columbus for 2 weeks, and had previously lived in Zanesville, Ohio. Curiouser and curiouser.

So when, where and how did OUR Albert Schmidt meet his demise?

I am hoping that by presenting the facts that are known about Albert Schmidt, Anna Augusta's husband, one of their descendants will see this post. And maybe, just maybe someone will have a story or some hard evidence about Albert's demise.

So here are the facts that I have been able to learn:

*Name: Albert Schmidt or Schmitt (from his marriage record, and the 1900 census)
*Date and place of birth: A major discrepancy is found when comparing the marriage record and the 1900 census. The marriage record says that he was 26 years old when he was married on 14 August 1890. That would make his birth ca. 1864. However, in the 1900 census, he is listed as 49 years old with his birthdate given as July 1850. That is a huge discrepancy, and only serves to muddy the waters. But both records agree that he was born in Germany.
*Occupation: Marriage record says "carpenter" and the 1900 census says "house carpenter"
*Residence: at the time of his marriage (1890) he was living on Mohler St. or Ave., Columbus (Apparently this street's name has been changed or no longer exists)
At the time of their first daughter, Johannah's death (7/28/1891), they were living at 439 E. Deshler, Columbus.
At the time of Gertude's birth (3/3/1892), they were still living at 439 E. Deshler, Columbus.
The Columbus City Directory of 1891 and 1892 also shows Albert Schmidt living at 439 E. Deshler, Columbus.
By the time of Ervin's birth (11/23/1893), they had moved to 395 Forest, Columbus.
At the time of Gertrude's death (1/2/1900) they were living at 395 Forest, Columbus.
At the time of the 1900 census they were living at 395 Forest, Columbus.
According to the 1900 Columbus City Directory, Albert is listed as a carpenter, living at 395 Forest St, Columbus.

According to the 1901 Columbus City Directory, Anna Schmidt is listed as living at 395 Forest, Columbus. This would indicate that Albert had died by the time this year's publication had been updated.
According to the 1902 Columbus City Directory, Anna Schmidt is listed as living at 395 Forest, Columbus, and doing laundry.

The timeline created above from various records, especially the Columbus City Directory, helps us narrow down when Albert died. We now know he was still living on 6/2/1900 (1900 Census) and he had died by the time of the 1901 City Directory. So, it appears that he died sometime during the second half of 1900.

Since his death does not appear in the Franklin County Death Records, it is possible that Albert was working away from home when he died. Makes me wonder about the possibility of him working in Mercer County at the time of his death. That might explain how George Roediger met his widow. But all of this is just grasping at straws.

If any of you have access to Newspaper Archives, maybe you could be persuaded to search the Columbus paper for the death of an Albert Schmidt in either 1900 or 1901. If you are a descendant of Ervin Ernest Schmidt, I am sure you are interested in this subject, and if you have already found the answer, please speak up. This kind of unsolved mystery drives me crazy!

George Roediger, pt. 4--The Line Endures

I am going to start off with a photo from the archives which would have been more appropriate to the pt. 3 post. But, that post was long enough.

1st Row--Irvin Aufderhaar, Walter Aufderhaar, Dorothy Aufderhaar, Martha Aufderhaar

2nd Row--Anna Augusta (Grosse) Schmidt-Roediger, Margaret (Roediger) Aufderhaar, Anna Christina (Weifenbach) Roediger, Mamie (Roediger) Horn, Alfred Roediger, Bertha (Roediger) Smith

3rd Row--William Aufderhaar, Conrad Roediger, George Roediger

(ca. 1919)

Conrad and George are brothers (red line), Anna Augusta is George's second wife (blue line)
and Margaret is George's sole surviving daughter from his first marriage (green line)

The four children in front belong to William Wesley and Margaret (Roediger) Aufderhaar

The older children on the right belong to Conrad and Anna Christina (Weifenbach) Roediger

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I find it interesting that the children from George and Anna Augusta (Grosse) Schmidt-Roediger's marriage are not in the above photograph.

But they did have two children, Harry George, and Hulda Alice. And they are the main subjects of today's post.

Harry George was born on 24 August 1903. On 4 October 1925, in Mercer County, he married Louetta Margaret Fetters. Harry George and Louetta Margaret had three sons. Since this generation has members who are still with us, in order to protect their privacy, I won't go into further detail, but their names are mentioned in their mother's obit below. But, in case there are other children, I would appreciate getting filled in by members of this portion of the family. :) Harry George died on 13 January 1999 in Beavercreek, OH and was buried at Riverside Cemetery, Troy, OH.

His wife of 66 years, Louetta Margaret Fetters was born on 28 March 1904 in Hopewell Twp, Mercer Co, OH. She was the daughter of Walter E Fetters and Olive L. "Ollie" Miller. Louetta died on 25 January 1992 and is also buried in Riverside Cemetery. What is somewhat disconcerting to me is that they have no memorial page on FindAGrave.com linked to Riverside Cemetery. Harry has a Memorial page (#23207845) but it list his place of burial as "unknown". FindAGrave.com is a great resource and I have contacted Mike Dearbaugh, the creator of Harry George's Memorial to advise him of the cemetery that he is buried in. I have also created a Memorial page for Louetta (#188483280) and linked her to Harry, as well as to her parents, who already have Memorial pages.

I would like to know more about Louetta's progenitors. Comment to this post if you would be willing to help me flesh that out.

Hulda Alice was born on 5 June 1905. On 12 November 1924 she married George Edward Luth (9/5/1901-1/9/1970) son of John H. Luth and Anna L. Frahm. They had 6 children (that I know of). In this case, I do not have obits or death notices for the parents that might reveal the identities of their children. But I am certain that four of the six children have died. Three died before the age of 10.

*Helen Pauline was born 9 July 1925 and died 23 January 1937 of pneumonia.

*Alice Marie was born 5 August 1927 and died just one day before her sister, also of pneumonia.

*Grace Irene was born 6 April 1933 and died on 19 February 1937 from a sore throat and heart condition. All three are buried in Buck Cemetery, Mercer Co, OH

*Florence Eileen was born 19 August 1929, married Donald Lee Bollenbacher on 18 June 1950. They had four children. Eileen died 26 July 2017. Donald was born on 17 April 1929 in Jay County, IN and died on 18 December 2016 in Van Wert (Inpatient Hospice Care), Van Wert Co, OH. They resided in the Rockford area, Mercer Co. They are both buried in Saint Pauls United Church of Christ Cemetery, Rockford.

It was Eileen who shared with me, in 2012, the picture of Anna (Grosse) Schmidt with two of her children in front of their house in German Village. --See the previous Post--

She shared a number of other photos with me at that time that pertain to her father's side of her family. She also had this clipping that I am sure you will find interesting, so I include it here:

The Singing Roedigers--Kenneth Earl Roediger, son of John Henry and Anna Christina (Eschmeyer) Roediger,
his wife, Magdaline Grewe and their four children, Shirley, Connie, Joann and Gary

I would certainly like to have a copy of that 45 rpm record. I don't suppose there any still out there? I have the means to digitize it, in case anybody has one residing in a box in the closet. Just sayin'

Before I conclude this series on George Roediger, I should provide you with the facts concerning the conclusion of his sojourn here on earth. I still have work to do to come up with the supporting documents. What I know, I received from my mom's research, and the research of Margaret (Henkener) Aufderhaar, which I have misplaced. I know it is within 10 feet of me, so it isn't really lost. And again I am indebted to Eileen (Luth) Bollenbacher, who supplied me with George's obit. *George Roediger died on 5 March 1934 in Mercer Co, OH at the age of 79 years. *His wife of 31 years, Anna Augusta died on 1 March 1940 in Celina. They are buried in Row 8, Section C, on the West side of Swamp College Cemetery, Rt. 29, west of Celina. If you notice in Anna's obit, there is more that can be learned about her family. She had a sister, Mrs. Agnes Oche living in Columbus. I am also aware of a brother, Emil (buggyseat maker) and August. But all of this is fodder for another post.

Well, I think I have finally wrapped up my series on George Roediger. I hope that you have found some useful information. And please be sure to let me know if I have mis-stated anything, or if you would like to provide additional information.

The formatting engine for this Blog is weird. So was unable to put George's obit directly under this. Check below Anna's Obit.