52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #17 ~ Anna Zaugg Meier/Meyer

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) 

I said I was going to write about Jacob Zaugg Sr's children and I'm trying to get back on course with this post.

To date we've had:
Lizzie
Christ
Jacob [my direct ancestor]

So next up is Anna ~
 
First just the facts:

Name: Anna Zaugg
Born: 01-Mar-1827, Eggiwil, Bern, Switzerland
Married: Jacob Frederick Meyer on 28-Jul-1853, Wayne County, Ohio
Died: 30-Mar-1903, Wayne County, Ohio [Find-A-Grave memorial]



Anna is the 4th child and I have most of the basics about her.  As I've reviewed her details I was interested to notice that she married on July 28, 1853.  She and her family did not arrive in this country until May 30, 1853 and just a short 2 months later the family is in Wayne County, Ohio and Anna is marrying there.  I wondered at first if her future husband was someone she met on the boat coming over, but according to the 1900 census, Frederick states his year of immigration at 1836.  I have found possibilities for him in the 1840 & 1850 censuses of Wayne County, so that seems valid to me.











One thing I need to straighten out is the name and identity of her husband.  The marriage record here gives his name as "Jacob Frederick."  Both his grave stone and the "Zaugg Book" give his name as Fred.  That doesn't bother me as I have many ancestors who liked to use their middle names - and often didn't seem to care in which order they listed those names!  However in trying to pin down the census records, I find both a Jacob and a Frederick living in the households.  Even in 1860, after their marriage I find them living with a man I believe is Frederick's father (Jacob) there is also a younger man named Jacob in the household.

Here is the record - and based strictly on the order that the people are listed I'm identifying Frederick and Anny as the married couple and the younger Jacob as an unmarried son and brother of Frederick.  The thing that puzzles me is that if Jacob Frederick Meyer had a brother named Jacob, why was he also given a first name of Jacob?

I'm not sure how much time I'll spend puzzling over this - given that they are collateral relatives.  But each time I write a post for this challenge I find these anomalies that I've never fully chased down.

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.