Ancestors of My Children (Updated 10/10/2023)
Every branch of my children's ancestry has been pushed back at least to their immigrant ancestor. I would love to find the birthplace of Nikolaus Matthias Kuehner in Alsace, France, and from there find his parents. Kuehner is the shortest branch of this family tree, with Nikolaus born July 12, 1824.
Descendants of Nikolaus Kuehner and His Siblings (Updated 7/19/2023)
Nikolaus Matthias Kuehner was born July 12, 1824. He emigrated from the Alsace, France in 1852 and became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. on October 19, 1859. His naturalization papers indicate that he had been a citizen of France. When he died in St. Lucas, Iowa on December 9, 1901, his tombstone was inscribed in German. His death record in the Fayette County Courthouse indicates that he was born in Germany.
On January 12, 1871, Nikolaus married Rosina Balk, who was born in Lerau, Germany on February 6, 1849. They had five children, one of whom, Elizabeth Mary, was my grandmother. Elizabeth married Francis Wenceslaus Kuennen on August 31, 1897. She died in 1922, when my father was only 5 years old.
I have been searching for Nikolaus’s birthplace and parents for 20 years. I have looked mostly in the Alsace, but I am now inclined to look in present-day Germany. Clearly he considered himself a German, but that could be only because he spoke the language. The Alsace was a part of Germany from 1871 to 1918, which would include the time of his death, when someone was entering his birthplace into a record.
Descendants of Harmen Kuhlenkamp (Einck - Updated 10/9/2023)
Bernard Heinrich Einck was born in Legden in 1831, not far from the area where the Huinkers were born. He came to the U.S. at the age of 27, sailing from Antwerp, Belgium to New York, on the ship Plutarch in 1859. I believe he married his first wife, Anna Bullerman, that same year in Cincinnati. She was also born in Legden, and immigrated that same year, so I assume that they knew each other in Germany. My great-grandfather, Theodore Einck was their first born child in 1862.
Theodore was born in Festina where he married Anna Elizabeth Mehs. My grandmother Matilda was their eighth of nine children. Anna was born November 6, 1863 and died March 26, 1943. According to Lorraine (Einck) Schrandt, Anna “died rather suddenly when a strong wind swept her from the porch.” (Einck Families, June 1982)
Theodore and Anna farmed about three miles south of Festina, on the farm that my mother Shirley would eventually grow up on. I have been there many times, but the buildings have now all been torn down.
Now, the following is a fascinating picture. It is from the same Einck Families book just noted above. If you can read the original caption, you’ll notice that all of the girls are listed as Huinkers (except for Frances, whose last name is listed as Hinker). Theodore, Anna, and the boys do not have their last names listed. This confused me for a long time, because I thought the little girl in the white dress in the middle was my grandmother, Mathilda. I could even see the family relationship, but what was this picture of Huinker girls doing in the Einck book?
The answer will blow you away – all five of the Einck girls married Huinkers. It is their married names that are listed in the original caption. This is actually the Einck family, and this is actually my grandmother, Mathilda (Einck) Huinker, the youngest girl in the white dress. And that’s not the whole story – both of Mathilda’s brothers married Huinker girls, making it a clean sweep. Both Huinker boys and three of the five Huinker girls who married these Eincks were siblings. Mathilda’s Leo and Frances’ Ed were first cousins.
So, three Huinker families accounted for the spouses of all seven of the Einck children. My mother says that the story went that they were from adjoining farms, so they just had to cross the fence line to get to each other.
Matilda lived on the family farm for a while after Leo was killed in the tractor accident in 1961, then she moved into a house near the church in Festina. I remember her dark brown turkey gravy, said to result from frequent basting. She died in the fall of 1967, after accompanying my parents when they drove me out to Notre Dame for the first time.
Descendants of Cunlius Bitzer (Lang Branch - updated 10/10/2023)
Ancestors of Rosa Lang (Uploaded 10/10/2023)
Johann Jacob Lang was born in Rosenfeld, Germany in 1834. He married Theresia Straub in Germany in 1862. They immigrated to the U. S. shortly after they were married. Lynn's grandmother Rosa Lang was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1875, and married Lorenz Hollerbach at the end of the nineteenth century, around 1898.
Rosa was mother to Aloys, b. 1901, and Cletus, Lynn's father, b. 1904, but she died in 1906. Lorenz married Rosa's cousin, Martha Straub, and with her had five more children.
Photo copied from a button in the possession of Noreen Hollenbeck Boyce, my wife's sister, of Gig Harbor, Washington.
Photo copied from a button in the possession of Noreen Hollenbeck Boyce, my wife's sister, of Gig Harbor, Washington.