Hans Hertling

So this will be a little convoluted at first. Bear with me.

When I first started exploring our family ancestry, my sister and I headed to southern Illinois and met with a first cousin once removed on the Wolf side. This cousin, Bill, in turn, told us about a cousin in Germany whom Bill had met several times. This cousin, Hans Hertling, had done extensive research in Germany on the Hertling family; Eva Hertling, who married Frank Wolf, immigrated to the US with her family in the 19th century, and Hans, in pursuit of the family, had turned from ancestry to cousin finding. That search led him to Bill (and some others). Bill figured Susan and I should know about Hans. He was right.

So Bill shared some of Hans' work with us.  It was impressive, detailed, well-supported, so I, as the designated finder of this side of the family, checked off a family as found and turned my attention elsewhere. I figured I'd return to the Hertling side for verification when I'd finished with some other lost families. (Sounds sloppy doesn't it. But Hans was an archivist and historian, and his support looked first rate. I still plan to obtain his documentation, but I trust his conclusions. However, the Hertlings have not yet been included in my family tree.)

Then three years ago, Hans decided to return to the US with his wife; this would be his fourth or fifth trip but Christel's first. It was to be her birthday gift, and they needed places to stay. So, along with Bill and a cousin in Cincinnati, I volunteered my home.

The planning was elaborate. We had to coordinate getting Hans and Christel from point A to point B (and then to C and D), figure out what they might like to do, deal with the language issue. Hans was fairly fluent in English, Christel not at all. But we all sorted it out; We arranged to have a cell phone available while they were in the US, shuttle services from one place to another were arranged, we compiled lists of possible attractions and activities.

Hans and Christel were at our place for three days, and we had a lovely time. Hans and I had some time to talk genealogy, Christel and Jay bonded over food (the universal language), and we took them to some decidedly Midwestern America things: the prairie museum here, the Lincoln Museum, some gardens, a Bavarian restaurant, the Amish community south of here. Christel and I spent an afternoon together, teaching each other German and English and laughing. We all had fun.

A week after they left us, they headed to Cincinnati where we met up again and did more sightseeing sorts of things. Hans met Susan and another sister, we did another German restaurant, toured Cincinnati sights, and then I took them back to Evansville, Indiana, their point of departure for home.

Over the next few years, Hans and I emailed one another, a lot. I started learning German and so wrote in Deutsch; he lied and assured me I was totally comprehensible. We sent copies of documents back and forth, had discussions about the Wolf family (I'd switch from German to English and back, as vocabulary and syntax failed me), whose origins in Alsace I had just discovered. I sent a German birth record that he translated for me. We talked about how names might alter in Alsace depending on who "owned" the region. I searched for immigrants here for him; he translated for me.

In 2015, Jay and I went to Europe; our plan was to spend time in Provence with friends, a week in Alsace for genealogy, and then a couple of days in Stockstadt with Hans' family before we flew home.

It's that planning thing; don't trust it. In late winter, Hans got very ill, ended up hospitalized. When we arrived in France, we had no idea what his health was like. I corresponded with one of his stepdaughters, and reading between the lines filled me with dread. When we left Provence for Alsace, we learned that Hans was home, that he was dying, that he wanted to see us.

So that's what we did.

Six weeks later, he was gone.

It's been a year now (May 30), and I miss him. For a while I attributed this to my own inherent selfishness; I'd lost the man who helped me with the incomprehensibility of European research. But lately I realize that isn't fair to either one of us; it's a lot more than that. Hans adored the hunt as I do, and he loved teaching, being the expert. And I love learning. And we both loved the puzzle that is family research; turning a multicolored, oddly shaped piece in our hands and speculating about where it might fit. I have all our emails and when I reread them, I see a much deeper relationship, that of cousins, yes, but also of friends and collaborators. So, yeah, I miss him because he could help me puzzle out what a 17th century occupational name might be, but what I really miss is the discussion that would follow, the one we both would have loved. The one where we argue about which Johannes Leonhard Müller is MY Johannes, the one from Göppingen or the one from Hohenstaufen; the one that sorts out which of two implausible stories is less implausible; the one where we moan about deplorable handwriting, the lack of centralized records, the random gaps in documents; the one where we speculate about what might have driven my Alsatien ancestors to abandon settled lives for the uncertainty of 19th century Ohio/Indiana, a newly settled, wild, untamed part of America.

That's what I miss, when I miss Hans. Which is really, really often.

Ida Wolf Bushu in Colorado: The Tale of the photos

Ida in Colorado: Tale of the photos

The cast of characters: Three generations of Wolfs.

·      Frank Joseph Wolf  (1852-1927) m. Eva Marie Hertling (1853-1937)

o   Mayme (1876-1911) m. 1896 William Walter (1870-1901) and m. ~1910 Carl Miller

§  Oscar (1897-?)

§  Amelia (1899-1920)

o   Ottilia (1878-1968) m. 1903 Stuart Reinhard (1879-1959)

§  Franklin (1906-1993)

§  Francis (1911-?)

o   Ida (1880-1915) m. 1908  Herbert A. Bushu (1879-1957)

§  Pauline (1909-1988)

§  Herbert C (1910-1968)

o   Elizabeth (1883-1982) m. ~1926 Dennis Fitzpatrick

o   Henry (1885-1907)

o   Francis George (1887-1968) m. Nov. 1912 Mary Frances Grubb (1892-1979)

§  William R. (1925- living)

o   Rose Katherine (1890-1913) m. 1909 Clyde J. Phillips (1885-1945)

§  Clyde J (1910-1920)

§  Pauline (1912-2001)

o   Pauline (1893-1978) m. 1914 Melvin Bushu (1882-1928)

§  Elizabeth (1915-1987)

§  Marietta (1916-2000)

o   Ray (1897-1959) m. 1919 Marjorie Mullen (1900-1990)

§  Raymond T. (1920-2000)

§  Frank (Bud) (1922- living)

§  Thomas (1925-1997)

PREAMBLE

A friend has been helping me clean up a few very old pictures so that the faces are clear enough to identify. This isn't as easy a task as you'd think, and it's complicated by the fact that we have so few photos of the Wolf family, and none of the faces in them are identified. My initial interest was in three family pictures, two taken in front of Mame (Mary) Wolf Walters Miller's home, and one, taken in an unknown spot, of most of the adult family (Rose is missing). Each of the photos raises interesting questions, but that is another essay.

In an effort to identify the faces in THESE photos, I consulted other old photos in my possession, and as is so often the case, in looking at something with a different goal in mind, I saw new stuff. So this essay is about a small set of personal photos that were taken when Ida Wolf Bushu, my grandmother, was out west trying to be cured of "consumption." 

The photos from her time in the west are immensely sad. There are three that appear to have been taken the same day, and feature great-grandmother Eva and her 3-year-old granddaughter Pauline, another of three adult women with child Pauline, and a final one of two women, one in a coat, greeting one another on a porch. The back of this one says “Aunt Betty Denver Col.” All three pictures are taken in the same place, what appears to be the front of a rustic cabin. There is a fourth photo, but its association, if any, with the rest is unknown. This one is of two women on a porch or balcony, though probably not the same porch as the other three (but possibly at the same building).

I should mention that these photos, all but the one of four women, have identifying names on the back, written in mother’s distinctive handwriting. The problem is that it isn’t clear when Pauline made the notes: before or after the onset of Alzheimers. I’m pretty sure there is at least one error; I doubt the photos were taken in Denver, as mom claimed. But is this mistake made because that’s what she was told, or was she disabled enough that she no longer remembered? Regardless, this one error leaves open the possibility that she misidentified the few people she named. Despite evidence that I shouldn’t, I’ve decided to believe mother’s identifications.

BACKGROUND

Ida Wolf Bushu's story is tragic. Born in 1880, she married a bit late for her era, in 1908 when she was 28. She had two children quickly, Pauline in September of 1909 and Herbert C. in 1910, but then fell ill with what we know was tuberculosis. I was told family stories about how Ida went to Colorado to be cured, about how she slept on a cold porch because it was believed the cold air and high altitude would be good for her. But Ida didn't stay in Colorado, and she wasn't cured. She went home and died in Mt. Carmel (her obituary says at her parents' home) in March of 1915. 

That is an awfully skeletal story for the woman who gave her daughter and me her rotten eyesight, so I have been trying to learn more. But mother didn't talk much, Grandfather not at all, and the civil records are pretty slim.  I have her baptismal record and her appearance in the 1900 census. She was too young for the 1880 census, and the 1890 census is gone. The 1910 census showed her married and still living in Mt. Carmel, and then she's gone. 

[A quick diversion. Ida is the third child of Frank and Eva to become ill, and the first to be sent elsewhere for treatment. Cousin Bill Wolf said he thought (and I stress the thought part, because as we all know, what we remember may have a very loose relationship with the facts) that one reason Ida's children didn't inherit anything when Eva, Ida's mother, died was because her father paid for her treatment out west. I've seen great grandfather's will and this is patently false; Pauline and Herb were in the will. What happened to mother’s inheritance after her grandfather died is anyone’s guess. But my bet is great grandfather paid for Ida’s treatment out west because he'd already lost two children to TB (Mayme and Henry), and he and Eva were frantic to break the family curse. They failed. They would lose another daughter, Rose, to the disease and a granddaughter, Amelia Walters, Mayme's child.]

THE SEARCH

Back to our story. I have really wanted to make this lovely woman real to me. I probably should have tried tracking down her school records (I’ve done some of that) and such, but instead, I went looking for her in Colorado. And, well, that's impossible; how does one find one sick woman temporarily living in a big state? So, as almost everyone knows, instead I've been chasing down Wolf ancestors (and had more success than I thought possible).

But then, Erich the photographer brought me cleaned up versions of those two old photos of the family, and I sat down with magnifying lens to see if I could figure out what these ancestors looked like. I wish I could say this process was easy, but it wasn't.  Eva and Frank Wolf produced children who look like, well, each other. I'm not great with faces, and so I've spent a lot of time poring over these photos, trying to tell everyone apart. 

To help with my task, I dug out other photos -- including those Colorado pictures -- read what was on the back, and tried to use that knowledge to put names to faces. The Colorado photos are both easy and hard. Easy because by the time Ida is there, Mame is dead of TB, and Ottilia and Rose are married with children, narrowing down who the women in the pictures might be. Ida helped me; she posed with a distinctive cocked hip in the family pictures, and the woman in a black skirt is posed a bit like that. And the more I stare at her face in other pictures, the more the face in this one looks the same. So I think Black Skirt is Ida. Child Pauline is easy, as is grandmother Eva. So what about the other women? Not a clue. Both Elizabeth and Pauline were possible visitors, but the posing in the three-women-and-a-child photo is very odd. One woman is very much in the background.  And the picture of the woman in the coat and hat? It says “Aunt Betty,” so I have to assume Aunt Betts was in Colorado at this time.

Back to the photo of three women with child Pauline. I was pretty sure about Ida. But the other two? I turned to another photo in the collection, one that is identified in mother's handwriting as Mary Wolf and Pauline Wolf "at Stratton Park." There’s no date with the photo, and so there’s no way to know if it’s taken at the same time as the other photos, but I sensed that it was. Setting, clothes and people suggest that. 

The date of that photo is important: Was it taken around the time that Ida was taking the cure, or at some other time? In the photo, Pauline Wolf appears to be a young adult woman. Since she was born in 1893, I think it’s safe to assume this picture wasn’t taken before 1910 when she was 17, and probably later.

The other woman is identified as Mary Wolf, and if this is true, we have two candidates for her.  Mary (Mayme, Ida’s sister) was born in 1876, married in 1896, had two children and was widowed by 1901. She died of TB in 1911. Anything is possible, of course, but it’s hard to imagine that she went to Colorado as a widow with two kids. Given the age that Pauline appears, I think it’s likely that Mayme was dying or gone when this picture was taken.

The only other Mary Wolf is Frank Wolf's wife, Mary Grubb. They were married in November of 1912. To me it seems likely that the picture of Mary Wolf and Pauline Wolf was taken after 1910, perhaps after Nov. 1912. (Mother was inconsistent in her naming habits. Sometimes women who were single when a picture was taken were provided with their married names on the photos. But sometimes not. So the picture could have been taken before Frank and Mary were married or after.)

And it suddenly hit me that the Stratton Park thing might be a CLUE, so I headed back online, learned that Stratton Park is part of Colorado Springs, and that Colorado Springs was extremely popular for those trying to recover from "consumption."  

More traipsing around, this time googling the name Stratton. I found a story about William Stratton, gold miner, major philanthropist and founder of sanitoria in and around Colorado Springs. Okay, I say to myself. So Ida could well have been in Colorado Springs. How do I find out where? 

I read about the sanitoria of her day, and that didn't help. A couple were run by nuns, but I was reasonably sure Ida was in a cabin of some sort, and many of these places sounded more like hospitals. So I asked Jay how he felt about going to Colorado Springs, and he liked the idea until he asked why, and I told him, "um, maybe see if I can find records of my grandmother when she might have been living there temporarily sometime in 1913 . . . ."

So instead of going to Colorado Springs, I logged onto Ancestry.com and managed to work my way to the Colorado Springs City Directory lists. Finding that the directories stopped with 1912 was sobering. (As usual, that has changed; there’s now a directory for 1914 and some later ones, but they aren’t relevant here.) In the photos that include Pauline (born Sept, 1909), she looks about 3-4; I know Ida died in 1915. I feared 1912 was too early.

In order to put a city directory (or any book) on line, someone makes digital images (pictures) of each page, just as they are. Some books are searchable, meaning you can type in the name Bushu, and the program will look for that name.  But city directories aren't searchable, so it takes a while to find what you're looking for, if it's there. (At least they weren’t when I first located them; they are now, a scant two months later.)

But I didn't let this scare me off. I accessed the 1912 directory, located the index, figured out about where the residents' pages would begin, and started looking at the pages at 144. Ooh, way too early. Try 160.  Nope, still the As. But finally, page 194, I find her.

"Bushu, Herbert A. (Mrs. Ida K.) r. Camp Stratton."

I am unable to believe that this is anyone other than grandmother; the name, the place, the year? For there to be two Ida Bushus, married to Herbert A. Bushu, boggles the mind. (I will seek corroborating evidence.) So in 1912 she's living at Camp Stratton, which sounds a lot like a rustic place where one might be trying to get well. Her baby boy (born in December of 1910) is at home, I think, with his Bushu relatives. Mom is with Ida, though I don't know if it's temporary or permanent. Ida is sick enough to need, and be willing take, the cure, and it's a pretty rough one. And, of course, it doesn't work.

So there we have it. Here are the pictures. In the photo of the three woman, I think we have Ida on the left, Pauline Wolf on the right, and either Elizabeth Wolf or Mary Grubb Wolf (Frank's wife), in the rear. They're at Camp Stratton, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Comparing the photo I have of Mary Grubb Wolf to this one tells me that she is the woman in the background.

And why might Mary be there? Well, this is wild speculation but: Frank G. and Mary Grubb were married in November of 1912. I have a wonderful picture of them on horseback in what looks like the Rockies, exchanging a precarious kiss. I think they were there in Colorado, and Mary may have chosen to visit her new sister-in-law.

SUMMING UP

I'm not sure why working all this out is so satisfying. We have a lot of public records, enough to piece together our family story in a fair amount of factual detail.  We all knew that Ida spent time in Colorado, so determining where shouldn't be that momentous.

And yet for me it is, I think because the census and other records show the public face of our lives, and Ida's time in Colorado, trying to get well so she can raise her children and love her husband, is personal. The farther back in time we go, the fuzzier our picture will become. And the farther we advance into the future, the harder it will become to make these ancestors flesh and blood.  Giving substance and life to the people of our past is my gift to the future.

CODA

I’ve been trying to find out more about Camp Stratton, and I’ve hit a brick wall. It’s a real place; at least 25 people were living there in 1912. But it isn’t listed in the 1912 city directory as a street, a hotel, rooming house, boarding house, furnished rooms, hotel, hospital, or sanitarium.  There’s a Myron Stratton Home but it’s for the poor and destitute. There’s a Stratton Park, and in the 1914 directory, Camp Stratton (a street) ends near there. Recall that the picture of Pauline and Mary was taken at Stratton Park, so perhaps there was something residential there.

CODA #2

In the fall of 2014 Susan and I visited Colorado Springs in the hope of finding Camp Stratton. Despite serious research in libraries and historical societies and conversations with archivists, we found nothing that told us anything. We know the place existed – it’s named in a city directory – but it has vanished from time, place, and memory. However, we did determine that it's  possible Ida's parents were renting a house in the area. And it appears that Elizabeth was staying with Ida, at least part of the time. I am soothed by the notion she wasn't alone. 

Meanwhile, here are the pictures.

Back says, "Aunt Mary Wolf and Aunt Pauline, Stratton Park, CO."

  

The back of this one says “Grandmother Wolf and Pauline (Rivers),” in Pauline’s handwriting.

This one says “Aunt Betty Denver Col.” Pauline’s handwriting. 

Below clockwise: Mary (in back) Pauline Wolf, Pauline Bushu, and Ida Wolf Bushu.

Francoise Schindler

One of these days, I'll find something funny to write about. But not today, alas. Today I've been organizing my Bourgeois documents prior to stowing them for safekeeping, which means double-checking dates and names, putting them in order, and creating an index so I can find what I want. So again, I am reading old documents. The process reminded me of one of my sadder discoveries.

Xavier Bourgeois was the great nephew of my great-great-great-great grandfather, Michel Bourgeois. We have no evidence that he emigrated with other family, and I have not looked at death records past about 1850 so I don't know his fate.

Xavier was born in 1791, and in late 1823, at 32 he married a woman named Francoise Schindler. Francoise was about 30 and the mother of an illegitimate infant daughter, Francoise, born in Fulleren in 1822. Xavier and Francoise had pretty a pretty depressing child-bearing experience. Their first child, Anne, born 12 months after the wedding, apparently died young, as they named a second daughter Anne*. Xavier and Marie are the next two children and then came an infant in May of 1830 who was stillborn. In August of 1830, young Francoise died; she was 8. Their last child, another Anne, was born in 1831. And then I lose track of the family.

Aside from the pain of losing, I think, three of six children, there's the coldness of the child Francoise's death report. In it, the officials declare she was illegitimate. That's true.  But what I found troubling is that the death report makes no mention of Xavier; Francoise, the mother, is a "journaliere" (laborer). Francoise died "dans la maison de Xavier Bourgeois," not in her mother's home. There is no mention made that Francoise and Xavier are married.

I suppose this is a good place to mention that sex before marriage was common in early 19th century France, to the great dismay of the Catholic church. The number of healthy, sturdy children born 5 or 6 months after a wedding was a scandal, and it wasn't that unusual for a couple to celebrate their betrothal with a bit more ardor than was seemly and then for him to depart -- for the army, for a job in the city -- or die. So Francoise's indiscretion wasn't the moral outrage it may have been in a different time or place. And obviously, Xavier had some reason to marry her, though it may have been that she'd already demonstrated fecundity. The Bourgeois family seems to have been highly regarded by their community, judging by the number of marriages that occur between various Bourgeois and other families of position. So I don't think Xavier married Francoise because he could do no better. I would like to believe he married her because he had some warm regard for her (marrying for love was an anomaly in the 19th century), but my guess is he had darker reasons.

The coldness of the death report makes me wonder about the lives of Francoise and her mother. My acquaintance in France tells me that men of that era often took in the illegitimate children of their wives, giving them their name, but not in this case. Xavier gave her (and her mother) a place to live, but it isn't clear he embraced them with warmth. I know nothing about this man, but I don't particularly like him. Interesting how a bare bones official document can arouse such intense emotion.


*It's also possible that this is another case where a child gets one name and then somehow ends up using another. But both Annes are simply Anne on their birth records.

ADDENDUM, 27 Feb. 2016.

A few days ago, I got a notice from Geneanet.org, where part of the family tree is posted, that a new Bourgeois entry had been found. When I checked it out, I was linked to a website called SteHelene.org. This site lists the names of hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen who were awarded the St. Helene Medal of Honor in 1857 for service in Napolean's army.

Xavier Bourgeois, born 3-Dec-1791, served with Napolean from 1811 to 1814. He’s one of only two relatives I could find who fought in the French Revolution.

Why I'm not applying for Pioneer Family status with Perry County

I'll start by saying that the Perry County branch of the OGS is awesome. The staff has been unbelievably helpful in all phases of my research, and I'm very grateful. I am not criticizing the organization but rather describing my own experience as a heads up to others who may want their families to be designated Pioneer Families.

My family were early settlers in Perry County; my 3rd grandfather, Michel Bourgeois, bought land and settled in Reading Township, Perry County, Ohio in Sept 1827. This meets the cutoff date of Dec. 31, 1830. So why am I not signing up?

Simply put, it's the challenge of meeting the standards for application. Part of the problem lies with the last name. The passenger list that documents the family's arrival in 1827 uses a pretty odd spelling (Boursioe), and the names and ages of the children listed do not quite match the facts. For instance, my own ancestor, Morand, born 26 Sept. 1810, is listed as Noma, age 14 (not 17).  There are many elements of the passenger list that have convinced me this is our family, but that conclusion was reached in conjunction with many other documents (French birth, marriage, and emigration records, and Michael's will). Standing alone, it's reasonable to have some small doubts.

To demonstrate the family is eligible for the Pioneer designation, we must show more than a land purchase. But during the early years that the family was in Perry, the name Bourgeois was spelled almost 40 different ways, none of them Bourgeois. We do have the family in the 1830 census, but the spelling of the name doesn't match that on the land records (or the passenger list). So while I know that Michael Burshee on the 1830 census is the same as Michael Burchuer who buys land 29 Sep 1827 as well as Michael Burscheur and Michael Burshue, who buy land in 1828, I can't easily prove it.

Because Michel and his wife arrived with all six of their children, we have no birth records that date prior to 1830. One of his sons, Meinrad, buys land in Nov. 1830, but he's not my direct ancestor. And again, buying land is not evidence that the pioneer lived on that land. So I have less than sterling evidence that the family was actually living in Perry in 1830.

Even if Perry County would accept my data as sufficient evidence that the family was living in Perry County in 1830, that doesn't solve other problems. One is that my mother's birth certificate is gone; a fire in Cairo, Illinois took that. The catholic church where she was baptized won't release baptism records. So I must use her marriage record and other documents to prove who her parents were. Of course, the marriage record is not a contemporaneous record, although there is good reason to consider it accurate. And I do not have her father's birth certificate though it is probably available, for a fee. I realize that it is remotely possible there is a hidden bomb waiting to be exploded (mother could be the daughter of the local priest rather than the man married to her mother), but I don't think her baptism certificate is going to reveal that. I'm convinced she is the daughter of Herbert Bushu, but I'm not sure I have unquestionable evidence of that.

The clincher, however, is the requirement that I get independent confirmation of the translations of the German, Latin, and French birth and marriage documents substantiating the lineage of the immigrant family.  I took French from grade school through two years of college; I took Latin for grade school and two years of high school. I spent an intense year learning German so I could translate the 100s of documents in my possession, and my translations have been informally substantiated by a German cousin who is now dead. I'm not fluent but I'm absolutely capable of translating simple documents. I'm not paying a translator beaucoup bucks to affirm the legitimacy of my translations. End of discussion.

I am not questioning the right of the society to make these demands; I assume they are consistent with the standards for the DAR and other pioneer societies. But these standards exceed those I have met to demonstrate incontrovertibly my ancestry. And so I've decided that I'd rather spend the money I would lay out to meet the society's demands on a genie trip, a book or magazine, or a conference. So the Bourgeois/Boursoie/Bursheur/Bushore/Bushu/Bushur/Bushue/Bursher families are pioneers, yes, but not Pioneers. Schade! Mais c'est la vie.

Documents in Dropbox

Well, I got my lazy self into action, cleaned up some material, and uploaded it to my Dropbox account. These materials are now available for those who request them.  What's posted:

• A narrative with photos that traces the Bushus, Bushues, Buschors, and Bushurs (perhaps others) with roots in Perry County Ohio and Celina, Ohio.
• A full descendent chart beginning with Jean Germaine Bourgeois of Montfauçon, Switzerland.
• A spreadsheet listing all the Swiss and French birth and marriage documents in my possession.
• A second spreadsheet listing all the deaths in Mertzen, Strueth, and Fulleren (Haut Rhin, Alsace communities) from 1810-1830.

If you would like access to these documents, just ask. If you'd like I'd love to know the following:

• an email address to which I can send Dropbox links.
• Tell me a bit about yourself and why you'd like the documents. I'd like to know where you are from and how you're related (if you're related). If you have a story to tell, please tell it! 
• If you have materials that add to or contradict what I've detailed, please tell me. 
• Agree NOT to share all or part of my work. The information and people belong to all of us. Put it in your tree, tell your family about it, enjoy the story. But my documents are mine, my errors are mine, and I wish to retain control of both. So I hope I don't see these documents posted intact or in pieces anywhere. 

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy the blog. 

The growing list of Bourgeois families in America

I haven't written in a while. I've been cleaning up some stuff and chasing an Irishman who doesn't want to found. Have you missed me?

I met with cousin Lester recently, and he shared materials that he gathered on his recent trip to Somerset and Celina, Ohio. He had a wonderful time, met some terrific people in the libraries, courthouses, and genealogical societies; even had a tour of the "old Bushu place" by the neighbor just north of Morand and Meinrad's old farms.

The reason I'm posting is to add another family to the list of people who can trace their roots back to Strueth, Haut Rhin.  Bear with me here.

So the first family to arrive in the US, in 1827, was Michael Bourgeois, born 1782 (to Michael Bourgeois and Joanna Flury), his wife, Anna Marie Turaine, and their six children. The second to arrive, in 1828, was a mystery man (possibly Michael's uncle)  and his wife, another Michael and Mary Ann. The third to arrive, in 1833, was Michael's (1782) younger brother Morand and eight of his nine children. The fourth immigrant was that of Morand's oldest child, Xavier, his wife Theresa, and their children in 1850.

Lester Bushue is descended from the first immigrants, Michael and Anna Marie. Their second son was Meinrad, and he and his first wife, Mary, produced Jonas whose descendants became BUSHUES

Mary Rivers (that would be I) is descended from Meinrad's younger brother Morand. My sisters and I are descended from Morand and his wife Mary Ann's second son, Frank. We spell the name BUSHU.

So that's Michael's line.

Morand 1785, Michael's little brother, didn't stay in Somerset for long. He and family ended up in Mercer County, Ohio. The BUSHUR of Celina, Ohio descend from THIS Morand. Thelma Bushur and her sisters Marjorie and Evelyn compiled the family tree for this line.

Lester, in his recent travels, discovered another line.  Meinrad, the sixth son of Morand 1785 (don't you dearly wish they'd had some imagination when naming children?) is the direct ancestor of the BUSCHOR family. Lester found the documentation for THIS family in the Mercer County Library.

Of course, in the growing mountain of paper that is my office I have all these documents. Oy!


So this should make your head spin. My ancestor Morand BUSHU had three sons, only one of whom had children, but he had five sons. So there's a fair number of Bushus.

Lester's ancestor Meinrad BUSHUE only had three sons, but Jonas had five. There are a lot of Bushues

Morand BUSHUR had six sons; lots of opportunity for the family name passing on, at least one of whom passed on BUSCHOR.

So at this point we know that Michael Bourgeois and Joanna Flury, parents of the immigrant men, produced four different last names. I can't help wondering how many more spellings, and relatives, are out there. Of course, the family genes continue in the thousands of women who've produced lots of babies; I'm not a big fan of the whole "carrying on the name" thing, so that's not my point. My point is that, if we just consider the male side, we may find there are many more permutations of BOURGEOIS, the name that started it all. Let me know if your family may be one of them.

Paris

I wrote this the night after the Paris terrorist attack and have been debating a post here ever since. I'm sharing because I AM French and I pray for us all.

France

I am a compulsive genealogist, and I have spent the last few nights entering data into my mother's side of the tree: the Hoffs, the Wolfs, the Bushus, who are French. Eva Hertling and Johannes Muller have donated their German ancestors to the cause, but for the time being, I've been focused on France. The process means seeing, again, that Salome died at 34, leaving seven children. That Anthony was felled by a tree and left his wife with 11 children to raise. That Jean died 25 days after marrying. It's hard to do this without seeing tears and pain in faces I never knew.

In the process I've been writing, laboriously, to my French relatives (and a genie friend) with questions. In answer, Michel has sent me some of the loveliest photos imaginable of Brittany (a slide show of chrysanthemums was breathtaking), and Etienne has graciously answered my demands about just how strong and accurate his sources are (very!).

Tonight, France is hurting. And I realize just how much my world has grown to embrace a land across the Atlantic. Intellectually, I have been educated to the nth degree to be culturally sensitive, to embrace the wider world, to empathize, to feel. But it's different tonight. I have relatives -- LOTS of them, I imagine -- in France, and given the propensity of restless young people to put their rural homes in their rearview mirrors, I imagine I have relatives in Paris. So suddenly an intellectual exercise has changed; I have skin in the game.

Please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying that the violence in Paris appalls me because of relatives I've never seen. I'm saying that this recent research process has made me think about France in ways I never have before. I've been researching agricultural processes, folk sayings, living arrangements, marriage rituals, the relationship between husband and wife, the dynamics of life and death in a small farming community. I spent a week reading and recording all the deaths in three tiny towns from 1810 to 1830; the families, whom I already knew because of marriage and baptism records, became real to me as I read about some killer years when three or four children might die within two weeks, of whole families wiped out, of priests and town officials dying, of death visiting house after house and leaving his mark. I am still haunted by what I learned.  

Two hundred years ago, the villain was probably disease. Today, we have a new villain. There was a time I would have been saddened by what's happening to people in France. Tonight, it stalks me, perhaps because of the incomprehensibility of people hating enough to kill. But also because I just discovered this beautiful spider web of connections in France, and tonight explosions and gunfire sent tremors along those delicate threads, reminding me that in mourning for France, I mourn for myself. Je suis une Francaise.