52 Ancestors 2018 #3

Longevity

Last week I shared photos of my great-grandfather Thomas Edwards. He died in a mining accident when he was 42. His wife, however, lived much longer. I met her once when I was only 3 or 4 years old. I have no memory of this, but my parents have photos from the family reunion that prove it. My great-grandmother Flora Sophia Maggie Hasemeyer lived to be 102.

She was born in 1889 in Colorado. Her parents were both German immigrants who ended up in Colorado, got married and stayed there. She married Thomas Edwards when she was 20 years old. They made their first home in the Gunnison area of Colorado. By 1920 they had moved to Carbon County Utah, where Thomas was a coal miner. When my grandfather was only 9 his dad, Thomas was killed in a mining accident. This left Flora alone with 4 children. A few years later her oldest daughter died, so she took in 3 grandchildren to raise as well.

Eventually she remarried. In 1943 she married William Monte Pilling, a divorcee with 5 children of his own. Sadly he passed away only 3 years later. Again Flora was a widow.

She stayed in Carbon County for the rest of her life, which lasted until 1991. She wasn't the only long lived in her family, she had a brother who lived to 93 and a sister to 91. I don't know the secret to her long life, but it seems at least a little of it was inherited.

Flora as a teenager

Hasemeyer Family - Elmer, Mabel, Clyde, Flora (back row); Magda and Dietrich

Edwards Family - Thomas, Elizabeth, Edward, Flora, Helen

Flora and Monte Pilling

Flora and her family in Utah

Flora at home

Breaking Through My Brick Wall

One of my most frustrating brick walls has been my 2x great-grandfather Dietrich Heinrich Hasemeyer. I knew he was born in Germany, went to Illinois, then on to Colorado (where he married my 2x great-grandmother), and died in Utah. But I didn't know much about his family, where he came from, or how/when he came to America.

You would think there would be a record of his coming to America, since it would have been around 1880. His Naturalization papers don't give any specifics, just a signed oath of allegiance. I just couldn't figure it out.

Then I remembered that his obituary mentioned his family. His obituary in Utah, 1925, stated that he had 3 brothers living in Illinois. This was the key.

One thing I like about Ancestry.com is the ability to make multiple trees, private ones, and it gives record hints even when the person has no death date listed (potentially living people). I made a Hasemeyer tree just for this investigation.

I looked up the 1920 census and found everyone named Hasemeyer (and other various spellings of the name), and put them all into a tree together. I knew many would not actually be related, but this was just to help keep track of/find other records for them.

I discovered that 3 of the Hasemeyer men I found were brothers, living in the same county in Illinois in 1920. And they all had birth records in Germany, that were searchable! They had the same parents (that's how I know they were brothers and not just people with the same last name).

From there I looked up the parents, to find all the children they had in those German records. Low and behold, they had a son named Heinrich Diedrich Ferdinand Haesemeier, with the exact same birth day as my Dietrich Heinrich Hasemeyer! I know that (in this family at least) the people went by their 2nd given name rather than their 1st given name, so Heinrich Diedrich would have gone by Diedrich/Dietrich most of the time. I had found my family!

All I had left to do was copy the information for my newly found family members from my private Hasemeyer tree onto my regular tree, and attach the sources.

All the other Hasemeyers in Illinois were totally wrong to be my family, the years and places didn't add up at all.

It pays to look up the FAN club of your ancestor and not just the person you are actually looking for (FAN stands for Family, Associates, and Neighbors). Now I am climbing this branch of the tree, finding cousins and grandparents, and so excited to finally break through that brick wall.

Update Mar 11:
I have a DNA match with another Hasemeyer, confirming that I found the right Hasemeyer family!

I saw that I had 2 matches through AncestryDNA with the name Hasemeyer in their family trees. One was related to my known Hasemeyer ancestor, and the other had a private tree. I messaged them, and they responded, confirming that they are directly descended from my ancestors brother. Looks like I have a new cousin (3rd cousin once removed for those who want to know)!

52 Ancestors Week 52 - Frederick Hasemeyer

Fredrick William? Hasemeyer was born about 1833 in Germany. He married a woman named Sophia. Together they had at least 4 sons.
He is said to have died around 1890.

If you have any information on the Hasemeyer family in Colorado or Illinois, contact me! *****

52 Ancestors Week 22- Dietrich Hasemeyer

Dietrich Henry Hasemeyer was born on March 4, 1859, in Germany to Sophia and William Fredrick Hasemeyer. He had one brother names William.
According to census records the Hasemeyer family immigrated around 1879 from Germany to America. Dietrich married Magda Sophia Elizabeth Schmidt on January 2, 1889, in Pueblo, Colorado.
In the following 5 years they had 4 children, 2 girls and then 2 boys. He lived in Colorado most of his adult life and worked as a carpenter. He was sometimes known as Kietrich Hasemeyer.
5 months before his death he moved to Utah to be closer to his children, who were coal miners. He died of a sudden heart attack on November 2, 1925, in Price, Utah, when he was 66 years old.

 *****
Parents:
William Fredrick Hasemeyer 1833–1890
Sophia 1837–1900

Siblings:
William Hasemeyer

Spouse:
Magda Sophia Elizabeth Schmidt 1865–1949

Children:
Flora Sophia Maggie Hasemeyer 1889–1991
Mabel Wilhemina Etta Hasemeyer 1890–1982
Clyde Frederick Henry Hasemeyer 1893–1986
Elmer August Hasemeyer 1894–1979

52 Ancestors Week 16 - Flora Hasemeyer

When I saw the 52 Ancestors theme this week at No Story Too Small was "Live Long", I knew exactly who I'd write about. My great grandmother lived to be 102 years old.

Flora Sophia Maggie Hasemeyer was born in Pueblo Colorado March 31, 1889. Her parents, Dietrich Hasemeyer and Magda Schmidt had both immigrated to America from Germany, and met and married in Colorado. She was the oldest of 4 children.

In 1909, at the age of 20 she married Thomas Edwards. The moved to Carbon County Utah where Thomas worked as a coal miner. Together they had 4 children (2 girls, 2 boys). After 22 years of marriage, Thomas was killed in a mining accident. With 4 teenagers to support (well, the youngest child was only 10) she went to work. Her mother also moved in with them. Then, in 1937 Flora's oldest child Elizabeth died in childbirth, and she took in her son-in-law and 3 young grandchildren to help raise them.

In 1943 she got remarried, to a local Mormon named William Monte Pilling. By then her own 3 living children were out of the house, as were William's 5 children. He died just 3 years later.

Flora continued to live in Utah until her death on Aug 27, 1991, at the age of 102 and 5 months. She was buried in the Price City Cemetery, where both her husbands were also buried (but not actually next to either one).

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Parents:
Dietrich Henry Hasemeyer (1859-1925)
Magda Elizabeth Schmidt (1865-1949)

Siblings:
Mabel Wilhemina Etta Hasemeyer (1890-1982)
Clyde Frederick Henry Hasemeyer (1893-1986)
Elmer August Hasemeyer (1894-1979)

Spouses:
Thomas Edwards (1888-1931)
William Monte Pilling (1895-1946)

Children:
Elizabeth Maryanne Edwards (1911-1937)
Edward Henry Edwards (1912-2012)
Helen Evaline Edwards (1913-2011)
Wilford George Edwards (1921-2008)

52 Ancestors Wk 5 - Magda Schmidt

The theme this week is 'plowing through'. I have lots of farmers to talk about, but instead I'm going a different direction. Back when I started doing genealogy, my father gave me his gedcom file. I don't know if much got lost in the transfer, but it wasn't sourced. At the time I didn't think about it. I know my father does good work, and has stacks of papers and sources.
But, as I've gotten better at my own research, I want the sources. Particularly since starting the genealogy do-over (which I am doing more of a 'go-over', but still). I am going back one generation at a time, direct ancestors only, sourcing all the info I have listed. Instead of just 'plowing through' the info I was given, I am actually double checking and sourcing everything.
And this brings me to Magda Schmidt, my great-great-grandmother. The info I was given included her immigrating from Fehmarn, Germany in 1881, and being married in 1888 in St Louis. After looking for a while in St Louis and the surrounding areas, I stopped and rethought the situation. Since she and her husband made their home in Colorado, and I have found them on the censuses there, why not look there for their marriage. Also, try looking for her name, instead of her husband's. I found Magda E Schmidt marrying D H Hasemeyer in Pueblo, Colorado in 1889!
But it doesn't give much information other than that. In particular, all the censuses and other records only indicate she was born in Germany, nothing more specific. With a tentative date of 1881 (as listed on a census record) I searched for her family coming to America. I found on Ancestry, the Hamburg Passenger lists for 1850-1934. And there was (most of) her family in Oct 1881, traveling from Hamburg to New York. I was ale to find their New York Arrival as well. The family, except for the oldest 2 daughters, are listed as coming from Lemkendorf, Fehmarn.  The older daughters traveled together to America just over a year later, listed as coming from Reinbeck, Fehmarn. So, now I have that information verified.
I hope in the near future to continue to find information about this family. Especially going back into Germany. So, I continue to plow on.

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Magda (Sophia?) Elizabeth Schmidt (1865-1949)

Parents:
Fritz Schmidt (1839-1919)
Margaretha Treimar (1838-1910) [surname also found spelled: Trimer, Trinar, and Trimar]

Siblings:
Margareta Schmidt (1862-1916)
Christina Amelia Schmidt (1863-1922)
Henrietta Deserie Schmidt (1867-?)
Fritz Emil Schmidt (1868-1939)
Mary Gertrude Schmidt (1869-1952)
Adolph Carl Schmidt (1870-?)
Henry Schmidt (1874-1874)
Agnes Henrietta Schmidt (1875-1944)

Spouse:
Dietrich Henry Hasemeyer (1859-1925)

Children:
Flora Sophia Maggie Hasemeyer (1889-1991) Yup, my great grandma was 102 when she died!
Mabel Wilhemina Etta Hasemeyer (1890-1982)
Clyde Frederick Henry Hasemeyer (1893-1986)
Elmer August Hasemeyer (1894-1979)