52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #16 ~ Frederick Samuel Zaugg or What Can Be Found on eBay

Written for Amy Johnson Crow's Challenge 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. (click on the icon in the sidebar for details at Amy's blog)



First just the facts:

Name: Frederick Samuel Zaugg
Born: 09-Jun-1871, Salt Creek Twp, Wayne County, Ohio
Married: Julia Maria Evemeyer, 03-Sep-1902, Christian County, Illinois
Died: 17-Oct-1941, Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio [Find-A-Grave memorial]

 
Relationship: Frederick is my 1st cousin 4 times removed.

I realize that in my post about the Zaugg Book I said I was going to write about Jacob Sr's children and I'm totally veering off course with this post,  but I think it's justified.

Recently there was a link on Facebook to a treasure trove of items for sale on eBay for some lucky family in Meigs County Ohio - pictures and other family history memorabilia.  I have ancestors from Meigs County, but not one name was familiar.  After I was done drooling over the Meigs County items, I did a quick search for anything Zaugg related.  I decided to pass on the $1,800 "Rare antique Swiss neck cittern (Halszither), bearing the original label by the maker: Johan Zaugg, im ??? ???, Signau ???, 1829." However as I continued to scroll through the offerings I was amazed when this popped up:

It's a small aluminum "pin tray" that looked to be in remarkable good condition.  Before I decided to actually purchase this item, I needed to make sure that the Reverend Zaugg and I actually had a connection.  I seemed to remember seeing something recently in one of my sorting frenzies that mentioned a Rev Zaugg, and sure enough I found the following obituary in my collection:

Lizzie is a sister to my Emma Zaugg and you'll notice at the end it mentions, "Rev F. S. Zaugg, a cousin of the deceased is conducting the funeral service." Anyway,  a little more research revealed that Rev Zaugg and I are indeed related so I am now the proud owner of this piece of Zaugg memorabilia.

Incidentally, this obituary is another one of those items that someone in my family, probably my Grandma Ritchie, carefully cut out leaving no indication as to the newspaper it was published in.  It's a reminder that I need to make a list of all of these, with death dates, for my next trip to Wayne County.  My working theory is that they all come from the Wooster Daily Record but I'd like to verify that.

So, I hope I can be forgiven for this detour in my Zaugg postings after finding this wonderful keepsake.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #15 ~ Christian Zaugg

Written for Amy Johnson Crow's Challenge 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. (click on the icon in the sidebar for details at Amy's blog)

First just the facts:
Name: Christian Zaugg
Born: 07 Dec 1822, Eggiwil, Bern, Switzerland
Married: Elizabeth Bealman, 15 Apr 1858, Wayne County, Ohio
Died: sometime between the 1880 census and the 1900 census


Relationship: Christian is my 3rd great-granduncle. I am descended through his younger brother, Jacob:


 - his daughter, Emma (Zaugg) Graber (1860 – 1919)
 - her daughter, Ella Rosa (Graber) Saurer (1883 - 1963)
 - her daughter, Lela Mabel (Saurer) Ritchie (1913 - 1991)
 - her son, my father, Donald John Ritchie (living)


The few things I know about Christian:
He came over with the rest of his family in 1853.  As noted above, he married in 1858 to a girl who had also come here from Switzerland (Berne, Switzerland according to the 1860 census.)

In the 1870 census the family is still in Ohio and have listed all the children shown on the page from the Zaugg book. The image I've seen of the census is exceptionally hard to read, but there is no doubt that there are 5 children listed.

Which brings me to an interesting discrepancy and one I never noticed until I started writing this blog post. It appears possible that there were two children named William.  I find a child, William, age 2 months, born in Ohio listed here on the 1870 census when the family is still in Wayne County.   However by 1880, when the family is living in Tennessee, there is a child, William, age 8 listed as being born in Tennessee.  Every other record I have for William indicates he was born in Tennessee so I need to look for a death record for the first William in Ohio or Tennessee. 

The 1880 census is the last time I have a record for Christian.  I haven't really looked in Tennessee to see what else might be available as this is a collateral relative that I don't currently have time to research.  The good news for me is that one of the cousin connections I've made is a great-great-granddaughter of Christian through his son William so there is another genealogist on his trail.

All I know is that by 1900 Elizabeth is back in Ohio living with her daughter Lena's [now Eichenberger] family.  Elizabeth is listed as a widow.  So, I still have a big question mark about Christian - where and when did he die and where is he buried?

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #14 ~ Jacob Zaugg, Sr

Written for Amy Johnson Crow's Challenge 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. (click on the icon in the sidebar for details at Amy's blog) 


First just the facts:
Name: Jacob Zaugg
Born: 21-Feb-1795* Bern, Switzerland
Married: Anna Stetler, 23-Jun-1820, Eggiwil, Bern, Switzerland
Died: 09-Dec-1873, Mount Eaton, Wayne County, Ohio
 *This is a calculated date based on the description in Wayne Co records of Jacob being 78yr 9mo 18days when he died on 09-Dec-1873



Relationship: Jacob is my 4th great-grandfather.
I am descended through:
 - his son, Jacob Zaugg, Jr (1824 - 1900)
 - his daughter, Emma (Zaugg) Graber (1860 – 1919)
 - her daughter, Ella Rosa (Graber) Saurer (1883 - 1963)
 - her daughter, Lela Mabel (Saurer) Ritchie (1913 - 1991)
 - her son, my father, Donald John Ritchie (living)

I have a copy of Jacob's will which he signed. Since I don't have a picture of Jacob, his signature is my "picture" of Jacob - or Jakob as he would have written it.







The will tells me several interesting things:

His son Daniel was already deceased by Oct, 1870.  I have not yet found an exact date of death for Daniel, but this certainly narrows it down.

The accounting by Samuel, the son who was the executor of the will, tells me that indeed Lizzie's oldest daughter's Anna married a man named Anton Kauffmann.  I had seen that in several Ancestry trees with census information from Kansas attached but I didn't really see anything to make the leap that Anna Wanner from Indiana had become Anna Kauffmann of Kansas. Now I have more confidence in that piece of information.

Along with the will are a number of letters that I have not had translated.  They appear to be letters from the children not in Wayne County acknowledging receipt of their share of the inheritance. One of the letters is from Anton Kauffmann.  (I would love to have these translated some day.) All of the children who lived locally signed a  note on April 1, 1875 indicating receipt of their respective share.

Looking at all the papers - it's not just the will, it's the probate packet - it just reminds me that I have found so many things that I have yet to take the time to really evaluate and pull out all the information they contain.  I'm embarrassed to say that I  have had these digital copies for years and just in the past few month transcribed the will and started to look at everything that I had downloaded the last time I visited the Wayne Co, Ohio library. 

I keep saying that I need to go back to Wayne County to do some more research, but what I really need to do is look at what I have first!!

I love this challenge - even as it points out more and more of my short comings with each week.

The Record of the Jacob Zaugg Family

 As I've been working on the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge, most of my posts seem to send me right to the bottom of Amy Johnson Crow's list.  Of course this is understandable since she very helpfully alphabetizes the list and I seem stuck on writing about my ZAUGG ancestors.  

I've mention the "Zaugg book", as I like to call it, several times so I thought today I'd step back a little bit and write about the book itself.  It will also help me plan future posts.  Up to this point I've been pretty random about which Zauggs I choose.

This booklet is something that came to me from my Grandma Ritchie [Lela Saurer] through her mother, Ella Graber.  Ella's mother was a Zaugg - Emma.  I've written about Emma previously in this challenge.

It was fairly tattered even when I first saw it as a youngster.  When it came into my possession I decided that I needed to do something so that I could both refer to it as necessary and also keep it from falling apart any further.  I'm sure this will make some of my friends gasp in horror, but I decided to take it apart.  It was a cheaply constructed pamphlet held together by rusting staples.  It was easy to very gently remove those staples and simple put each page in an appropriately archival page protector.  Now I can flip through it and lay the pages flat without small flakes chipping off the pages. 

  

As for my posts, I thought I'd circle back and do a post about Jacob Sr and then run through the children I haven't yet posted about in birth order.  I've already posted about Lizzie and also Jacob, Jr since he is my direct ancestor.  So, up for this week will be Jacob (Sr).

Since by "this week" I mean TODAY, I guess this had better be my first priority tonight.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #13 ~ Elizabeth "Lizzie" Zaugg

Written for Amy Johnson Crow's Challenge 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. (click on the icon in the sidebar for details at Amy's blog) 


First just the facts:
Name: Elizabeth "Lizzie" Zaugg
Born: 1821/1822, Eggiwil, Bern, Switzerland
Married: John Wanner, 25-Apr-1845, Eggiwil, Bern, Switzerland
Died: 06-May-1888, Adams Co, Indiana [Find-A-Grave memorial]


Relationship: Lizzie is my 3rd great-grandaunt.  I am descended through her younger brother, Jacob:


 - his daughter, Emma (Zaugg) Graber (1860 – 1919)
 - her daughter, Ella Rosa (Graber) Saurer (1883 - 1963)
 - her daughter, Lela Mabel (Saurer) Ritchie (1913 - 1991)
 - her son, my father, Donald John Ritchie (living)

For many years, the above page from my grandmother's copy of the Record of the Jacob Zaugg Family was all I really knew about Lizzie.  Since then, I've learned just a little more.

Lizzie and John Wanner and their two young daughters, 7 year old Anne and 3 year old Elizabeth arrived  at Castle Garden, New York aboard the Cotton Planter on 10 Jun 1853. They were just days behind the rest of Lizzie’s family, her parents and all her siblings having arrived 30 May 1853 aboard the Roger Stewart.


















Immigrants at Castle Garden, New York City, 1866. Wood engraving in "Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper", 20 January 1866, vol. 21, p. 280-281.
By Unattributed [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

While the rest of the Zaugg family went to Wayne County, Ohio, the Wanners journeyed on to Adams County, Indiana settling near Berne.  As shown in the 1860 census, besides 15 year old Ann and 10 year old Elizabeth, they now have 2 more children, 7 year old Frederick and 4 year old Mary Ann.  Both of these last two children were born in Indiana so it appears that the Wanners were in Indiana by 1853  - or pretty much right after they got off the boat.

I wonder why there is no mention of these children in the Jacob Zaugg book?  By the time of the 1870 census, none of these children are at home, but now Emmanuel is there (6 yrs) but also Isaac (8 yrs)  Yet in Oct, 1870 the oldest girl, Ann, is specifically mentioned in her Grandfather, Jacob Zaugg's will. "Item 2nd I devise and bequethe to my grand daughter Ann Wanner daughter of John and Elizabeth Wanner four hundred dollars"  That seem like an unusually large amount since her mother was only left $100.00.

Of course this book was published in 1923 in Ohio and it's very possible that the Ohio part of the family had lost touch with the Indiana branch.  The most complete part of the family page revolves around Emanuel but even that has many errors and omissions.  I have a revised version that was completed by one of Emanuel's grandsons.

I plan to visit Berne, Indiana later this year.  They have a Swiss Days festival that should be fun. I will also be visiting the local library to see what else I can find out about this part of the family.  Unfortunately there wasn't room at the bed & breakfast where I first wanted to stay - because the house was BUILT BY EMANUEL WANNER!!  It was a sign - I had to go.  And besides, who wouldn't want to visit the rural mid-west in July??